Former Los Angeles Lakers basketball players Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom felt betrayed, after an unsuccessful trade that marked a period, when it comes to the NBA league.
Gasol and Odom were important screws of the franchise from Los Angeles in winning two consecutive championship titles of the best competition in the world. However, after one season in which Dallas eliminated the “Lakers” and later won the trophy, the management of the Lakers decided on a radical move.
Everything was agreed that Chris Paul from the New Orleans Hornets would strengthen the team and become teammates with Kobe Bryant. In that trade, Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom would change the middle. In the end, league leaders halted the move. The assessment was that the balance of power in the NBA would not be balanced.
The Spanish “AS” reported the statements of the journalist Marko Medina, who followed the events of the Lakers of that era on a daily basis, which concern the aforementioned situation.
Garry Vitti, one of the coaches of the team of the 17-time NBA champion, described how the Lakers tandem accepted the management’s decision.
“Gasol and Odom felt betrayed. Both of them sacrificed things in their game in order for the Lakers to be successful. Then we turned our backs on them and traded them. Lamar never recovered. “Pau was also injured, but he was much more professional,” Vitti said.
The Spanish representative remained in the yellow jersey until 2014. Odom signed with Dallas in December 2011, but returned to Los Angeles very quickly. His career soon went downhill, in 2014 he was hired by Baskonia, for which he played only two games. He tried to come back, only to stop everything, first because he was not ready enough, then because of health problems. Gasol finished his career in 2021.