For Odom, it’s all in the timing

Someone on the Lakers wasn’t happy with Lamar Odom’s near triple-double in Friday’s exhibition game.

Odom himself.

“Sometimes stats can lie a little bit,” the Lakers forward said a day after a 17-point, 10-rebound, nine-assist effort against New Orleans. “I know what I expect out of myself. Nobody here expects more out of Lamar Odom than Lamar Odom. That’s just one game.”

Odom is frustrated with his timing and conditioning after spending a summer away from basketball.

He remained in New York longer than expected after his infant son, Jayden, died from sudden infant death syndrome in June. Then, while trying to cope among friends and family, Odom was mugged at night by a teenager while walking near a family member’s home in Queens, N.Y.

He went months without picking up a basketball.

“My timing is still off and I still have got a couple weeks to go as far as getting my body under [control],” Odom said. “I want to trim down a little bit, add some [muscle] mass at the same time. I’m not as strong as I was coming into last year. I want to be in better shape.”

Odom weighs 245 pounds but wants to get down to a leaner 238.

The Lakers aren’t down on Odom the way Odom is down on Odom.

“He’s still working himself into basketball shape, getting the timing and the rhythm that he needs, but I thought there were some really nice sequences with him in the game [Friday] where he was aggressive taking the ball to the basket,” assistant coach Kurt Rambis said. “That’s kind of what we really need him to do.”

Odom will need to adjust to a different position.

The Lakers have more ball-handling guards than they did last season, so Odom has played out on the wing instead of bringing the ball upcourt as a point forward. He could also play center against smaller teams while Kwame Brown and Chris Mihm remain sidelined in the early part of the regular season.

Either way, Odom’s thoughts don’t wander far from Jayden. Before every game, he hangs in his locker an oversized T-shirt with Jayden’s image on it.

“It’s still something I have to deal with every day,” Odom said.

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Kobe Bryant will not play tonight against Phoenix, the seventh exhibition game he has sat out. The Lakers will have one exhibition left, Thursday against Denver, before the regular season begins Oct. 31 against Phoenix.

Bryant has taken part in a few light scrimmages but has not gone though a full practice since undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery in mid-July.

“Obviously, the more games and more practices the better, but ... you can’t put it in a ‘need’ and ‘have to’ situation,” Rambis said.

“We just have to adjust whenever he does come back.”

The team still expects Bryant to play in the opener, but his absence would mean more reliance on Odom, who averaged 14.8 points, 9.2 rebounds and 5.5 assists last season.

“It’s not an ‘Aw, man,’ ” Odom said. “It’s just like in the army when a soldier goes down, a captain, a sergeant, a colonel goes down -- somebody’s got to step up and do the job. I think that’s something that I’m prepared for, but I want to have my guy back.”

And when Bryant returns?

“I think everybody kind of knows what page to be on,” Odom said. “I don’t think it will be hard at all.”

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com