Lakers’ Lamar Odom sticks like glue

Away from the swarm of the TV cameras and handheld voice recorders, Phil Jackson got somber for a moment, revealing how close the Lakers were to losing Lamar Odom as a free agent last July.

“We thought there was a chance he may be gone,” the Lakers coach said quietly.

The Portland Trail Blazers made a multi-year offer believed to be about $9 million a season. The Miami Heat also made a pitch for Odom, offering the most it could — five years, $33 million — and adding the tantalizing proposition of more playing time as a starter for a player who had a career season with the Heat in 2003-04.

It didn’t help the Lakers that negotiations were stalling, if not bottoming out near the end of July, the first month of the free-agency period. Odom’s return was in doubt after the franchise yanked its offer of three years and $27 million.

But Jackson checked in often from his home in Montana, pushing the importance of Odom to the Lakers’ front office, which eventually signed him to a four-year, $33-million deal on the 30th day of free agency.

“Lamar was very loyal to the Lakers. He could have made more money elsewhere,” said Odom’s agent, Jeff Schwartz. “There were a lot of outside forces going on at that point in time, namely the economy and the outlook on the team’s finances. I think it really affected what Dr. Buss wanted to do.”

The Lakers’ payroll has swollen from $78.3 million last season to $91.3 million this season, cutting directly into a profit margin of about $40 million last season and leaving owner Jerry Buss shifting uncomfortably in his seat whenever there’s talk of the NBA’s highest payroll.

Odom, however, smiles when he thinks of the longest month of his Lakers career. It helped to have Jackson in his corner.

“It says a lot about my role and about my position on the team,” Odom said. “Whenever you have a coach as heralded or big-time or has been around like Phil has been around, it’s an amazing compliment.”

These are the days when the Lakers are thankful they have Odom, a sixth man who has played starter’s minutes in the Western Conference finals, filling the void for an ailing, limping Andrew Bynum.

Amare Stoudemire might not think it’s true, but Odom has helped carry the Lakers to two double-digit victories, averaging 18 points, 15 rebounds and 3.5 assists while shooting 64% against the Phoenix Suns. Game 3 in the best-of-seven series is Sunday in Phoenix.

Odom wasn’t a big factor in the first two rounds of the playoffs, averaging 8.5 points and 8.1 rebounds while battling a chronically sore left shoulder and sprained right knee.

The Western finals have created a different dimension for Odom, who came alive at almost the same time last year, averaging 19.5 points and 11 rebounds in the last two games of the conference finals to help the Lakers break a 2-2 tie with Denver.

He has been solid this series, making Stoudemire’s 4.5-rebound average look silly, and if he could do this all the time, the Lakers would sweat a lot less.

It’s part of what makes him an enigma, a point guard’s skill set wrapped into a power forward’s 6-foot-10 frame that doesn’t always light up the stat sheet.

“I would do it if I played on a team where they just gave me the ball and said, ‘Go set a pick for him’ or ‘We need you to shoot 25 times,’ ” Odom said. “That’s not my role on this team.”

Odom’s teammates and coaches almost ignore his on-again, off-again tendencies, unilaterally pointing to him as being the team’s “glue guy,” the modern-day sports cliché for the player who does things on and off the court that don’t show up in the national highlights.

“Lamar’s like a community guy. He gets around to everybody,” Jackson said. “He’s got the kind of personality that seems to work well with almost all the guys. That’s important on this team.”

Veteran guard Derek Fisher didn’t like the concept of a glue guy. It didn’t say enough about Odom.

“I’m a little leery of that term for guys because glue seems sticky, inconsequential. It holds things together, but only after it’s broken,” Fisher said. “He’s definitely one of our guys that makes it fun to come to work for us. Everybody just enjoys being around him, so if that’s what a ‘glue guy’ is, then definitely two thumbs up on that one, no question.”

Right now, Odom’s thumbs might be the only things that don’t hurt him.

“I’m pretty beat up,” he said. “I’m pushing through. It’s been a long year for me. I got married and had to come to work the next day. The mental part of it. … I’m tired. I can sleep forever. I wouldn’t have no problem sleeping.”

His marriage to reality TV star Khloe Kardashian added a slew of endorsements and national TV commercials that ran on Super Bowl Sunday and throughout March Madness, but his increased celebrity came with a price.

Everybody thinks they know him, sometimes to his detriment.

One of the top sportswriters in the country wrote on his Twitter feed Saturday morning that a friend saw Odom at a New York club at 3:44 a.m., approximately seven hours before the Lakers began practice Saturday in El Segundo.

Odom didn’t find it funny.

“Not this time if the year,” he said Saturday afternoon, shaking his head and denying he was anywhere but Los Angeles this weekend. “Stupid tweet.”

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