Odom won two titles with the LA Lakers. Photo / AP
Good for Scott Van Pelt and everyone else who didn't reduce Lamar Odom with the simplest possible reduction of his life.
The ESPN anchor spoke for a lot of people who were stunned and offended when Odom was identified as a "Kardashian reality star" when news broke that he was fighting for his life after collapsing in a Nevada brothel this week.
"Kardashian reality star? No, no, no no. Lamar Odom, unlike those for whom fame is oxygen, whose fame comes in the absence of accomplishment, his fame was earned," he said on his SportsCentre show. "As sixth man of the year, as a multiple NBA champion. As the result of his significant role of the Los Angeles Lakers teams and being a beloved NBA teammate and peer."
There was a time when Odom's basketball talent was so formidable that he was compared to Magic Johnson. He won two titles with the Lakers and remains beloved by his former teammates. HoopsHype reminds us that only five players have averaged at least 13 points, eight rebounds and 3.5 assists per game this century and, yes, the "Kardashian reality show star" is one of them.
CBS's Ken Berger has interviewed Odom often and is as offended by the reduction to Kardashian accessory as anyone.
To some, Odom is a cartoonish reality TV star who got mixed up with the Kardashians and bounced right out of the NBA while still on the edge of his prime. To those who don't remember how talented he was (or, more important, how genuine and caring), he will forever be just another celebrity who took a wrong turn and ended up unconscious in a den of disrepute - and whose name scrolled across the headlines on TMZ.
Of course, so, too, did the Kardashians, with estranged wife Khloe reportedly by his bedside. That made it too easy for some people to reduce this to the Kardashians and, oh, yes, that guy who used to do something athletic.
Odom's hoops career was about to wane when he married into the Kardashians and becoming a True Hollywood Story was overwhelming for Odom, who now is in the midst of a divorce from Khloe Kardashian. It was more than Odom expected, Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski writes.
In recent days too, the Kardashians refused to stop exploiting Odom on that reality show, seizing on what appeared to be a lost soul in crisis reaching out to his ex-wife and manufacturing his phone calls into Khloe-Kim argument fodder for one more dreadful episode.
Odom is more than that, a man who has been fighting for his life his whole life. His mother died before he was a teenager, his father was an addict, he lost one of his three children to sudden infant death syndrome and he has fought a battle with drugs and alcohol his entire life. A mere Kardashian appendage? Please.
"I understand not everyone watches sports, but Kardashian reality star?" Van Pelt said.
"His name is Lamar Odom. And we knew him long before he got married on a reality show we don't watch."