{"id":556180,"date":"2026-03-31T13:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T13:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/556180\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T13:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T13:16:07","slug":"death-hunted-him-since-he-was-a-kid-how-lamar-odom-survived-to-become-a-villain-in-his-own-tale-nba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/556180\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Death hunted him since he was a kid\u2019: how Lamar Odom survived to become a villain in his own tale | NBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a version of the Lamar Odom story that ends in a Nevada brothel<\/a>. It\u2019s not hard to imagine the grand finale \u2013 the TMZ bulletin relating his fatal drug overdose, followed by emotional tributes to what was lost: a radical basketball prodigy of the New York tradition, a two-time NBA champion with the Kobe Bryant Lakers, a glittering career that spanned coasts and eras before caving under the weight of addiction. A cautionary tale of incandescent fame, with Odom\u2019s celebrity wife Khlo\u00e9 Kardashian cast as a man-eater to eclipse her more notorious older sister, would have been the epilogue cemented in a thousand think pieces.<\/p>\n

But by living to tell the tale, Odom has instead become the latest fallen star to prove a core truism of Western mythmaking: heroes who don\u2019t die young are doomed to live long enough to become the villain in their own tale<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a way of understanding Lamar where everything in his life is kind of in reaction to death hunting him since he was a kid,\u201d says Ryan Duffy, executive producer of Netflix\u2019s Untold sports docuseries. \u201cThen it catches him, he somehow wiggles out of it and is still here. Shit, I\u2019d be pretty sideways if that was the case for me, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the latest installment of Untold, The Death & Life of Lamar Odom, Ryan Duffy (who previously chronicled the scandals of Manti Te\u2019o<\/a> and Johnny Manziel<\/a>) returns to the director\u2019s chair to revisit the moment in 2015 when Lamar Odom was found unresponsive at a Nevada brothel<\/a> \u2013 a breaking-news jolt that marked the most spectacular sports downfall since Tiger Woods slammed into a fire hydrant. (You\u2019d have to think the Untold team is strongly considering their own deep dive on the golfer in light of recent events<\/a>.) That was the year Odom topped the Google Trends list for living people<\/a>, a tidy measure of how fully his saga consumed the public.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Reportedly on a cocaine binge in the days before the brothel incident, Odom suffered kidney failure, multiple heart attacks and 12 strokes. He was placed in a medically induced coma for several days, with doctors initially giving him little chance of survival without significant and lasting brain damage. All the while, his stunning crash-out was framed in the tabloid press as the culmination of a mushrooming substance abuse problem. Odom had nearly wrapped up a three-year probation sentence following a 2013 DUI arrest, and Kardashian was waiting for a judge to sign off on her divorce request. That delay would turn out to be an extraordinarily lucky break for Odom.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the documentary\u2019s 90 minutes, Odom steers the conversation with charm and vulnerability. But before dismissing this sports biography as yet another exercise in self-guided legacy shaping, viewers should know that Odom bucks the athlete co-producer trend. Not only does he keep things unflinchingly real, he lets the uncomfortable truths lie without a positive spin. He accepts that he was a bad father, a worse partner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know cocaine isn\u2019t the way to go,\u201d he explains in a wistful aside about his past drug use, \u201cbut it\u2019s a high that feels so good, you wish you could capture it and put it in a bottle so you can have it the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n

As his daughter, Destiny, points out in the documentary, Odom would sooner move on with his life than spend too long considering his misfortunes and missteps before plotting a fresh course. It quickly becomes clear that this isn\u2019t just a defense mechanism; it\u2019s the survival instinct of a man who couldn\u2019t afford to dwell on losses. His father, a heroin addict, has largely been a background character in Odom\u2019s life, and his mother died of colon cancer when he was 10. His relationship with his high school sweetheart, Liza Morales, another prominent voice in the documentary, fell apart when their six-month-old son died of sudden infant death syndrome in 2006 while Odom was partying with friends.<\/p>\n

Odom, now 46, processes these tragedies with deadpan candor, much like Rick James reflecting on his rock\u2019n\u2019roll past in those old Chappelle Show skits<\/a> \u2013 unbowed and unrepentant. He doesn\u2019t make excuses for throwing away what could have been an all-time great NBA career, one that surely would have earned him more credit for helping usher in the current era of positionless basketball. That lack of pretense is a quality hardcore fans have always respected about Odom, who agreed to come off the bench after LA acquired him in a blockbuster trade and went on to become the NBA\u2019s top reserve.<\/p>\n

In the documentary, Phil Jackson fondly remembers Odom as a selfless player who saw his teams as family \u2013 but then winces at his former player\u2019s attraction to fame, as if Jackson wasn\u2019t dating team owner Jeanie Buss when Odom\u2019s whirlwind romance with Kardashian was in full bloom.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting on that plane and going up to Montana to see him was personally thrilling,\u201d Duffy says of meeting Jackson, the 13-time NBA champion that sportswriters dubbed the Zen Master<\/a>. \u201cLike, going to see the oracle at the road and have his wisdom bestowed upon me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson, who has been out of basketball since his disappointing tenure as New York Knicks president, would have been the major get for this project if Kardashian hadn\u2019t agreed to sit down at the last minute.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt happened late enough in the doc that I was telling my editor [Freddie DeLaVega]: \u2018We can probably plug her in here or there,\u2019\u201d Duffy says. \u201cBut after she gave us two hours of her time, I was like: \u2018Freddie, I have bad news: we\u2019re starting over.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Lamar Odom\u2019s marriage to Khlo\u00e9 Kardashian was never far from the gossip pages. Photograph: Startraks Photo\/REX<\/p>\n

The Kardashian interview is the element that separates Untold\u2019s Odom treatment from the other docs he\u2019s sat for over the years. She pulls back the curtain on their paparazzi romance \u2013 how she met Odom while working a $5,000 hosting gig for a party celebrating Ron Artest\u2019s 2009 Lakers signing, how they married a month later, how he took an immediate interest in her family\u2019s budding reality TV empire and pushed for a spin-off featuring just the two of them. She remembers Odom\u2019s drug use and serial philandering quickly snowballing into a monstrous situation that had her searching for him in alleys, paying off hotel maids to keep stories out of the press and even frantically pumping his stomach when he overdosed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt such a responsibility to cover this up, hold it together and protect him,\u201d she says, viewing herself as more of an enabler of Odom\u2019s addiction in hindsight.<\/p>\n

When an intervention in 2013 didn\u2019t work, she filed for divorce, with both parties signing off in July 2015. Three months later, Odom was discovered unconscious at the Love Ranch \u2013 a legal brothel roughly equidistant between Las Vegas and the Mexican border.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe drive itself was illuminating,\u201d says Duffy, recalling how initial reporting of Odom\u2019s medical emergency placed him in Las Vegas. \u201cIt was all double-wide trailers and fucking meth labs. Like, you are in dire straits if you find yourself out here. It gave me a better appreciation for the depths he had fallen to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kardashian claims Odom\u2019s estranged father would have pulled the plug on his son if she hadn\u2019t intervened at the hospital \u2013 which still recognized her as his next of kin with their divorce unfinalized \u2013 and bought him off Odom Sr with $100, a pair of Nikes and a night\u2019s hotel stay. She also suggests their marriage might have survived if Odom hadn\u2019t kept using drugs behind her back \u2013 the final straw coming when she caught him smoking crack months after being discharged.<\/p>\n

Odom neither pushes back against Kardashian\u2019s version of events nor shows much appreciation for the considerable efforts she made to save his life and reputation, sealing a twist in the tale. She transitions from reality-TV foil to hero, while he flips from sympathetic protagonist to unmistakable villain. Or at least that\u2019s before considering the grip of addiction and its role in this story. Odom jokes about partying in Vegas and \u201cmarrying somebody\u201d as the documentary wraps. Earlier this year, he voluntarily entered a 30-day rehab program for marijuana use after pleading not guilty to a DUI. (His case is set for a July trial.) Odom still seems to think like a user. But that\u2019s not to suggest he\u2019s irredeemable.<\/p>\n

Untold shows him attempting to repair his relationship with his adult children. His son Lamar Jr shares a heart-rending story about Odom jilting them for the Lakers\u2019 2009 championship parade while Destiny recalls a post-emergency tour that took Odom everywhere \u2013 most notably Bryant\u2019s farewell game \u2013 but never to therapy. Odom often harkens back to a recurring dream in which he sees Bryant again and is told \u201cthe afterlife is not what people make it out to be.\u201d Worryingly, Odom appears curious enough to test his late teammate\u2019s \u201cmessage\u201d \u2013 again. \u201cHe just acted like the coma thing never really happened,\u201d Destiny says.<\/p>\n

In an alternate telling, Odom\u2019s survival story would be a profile in courage and clarity. The version he offers through Untold \u2013 raw, rough and bracingly real \u2013 delivers a far more authentic lesson. \u201cWhen you make these docs, especially with athletes who are pretty well media trained and have been in the spotlight, they understand documentaries,\u201d Duffy says. \u201cWe\u2019ve been in this sports documentary boom for the better part of a decade now, so they understand them and usually work really hard \u2013 whether it\u2019s true or not \u2013 to tie things in a tidy bow: \u2018Yeah, look, I did have these struggles, but they\u2019re gone. I overcame them. Here I am, the fully realized version of me that you always wanted.\u2019 Lamar, to his credit, didn\u2019t do that. As much as I\u2019m sure that is a tax on the people around him, I appreciated the sheer honesty and vulnerability of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guy\u2019s perspective is: \u2018I survived this night in Nevada \u2013 where, by all accounts, I should be dead. There was divine intervention involved in my survival. And that means I need to do something. I need to find some meaning.\u2019 But he doesn\u2019t know what the fuck that is. Where he is now is in a place of just searching. And he\u2019s comfortable with that uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a version of the Lamar Odom story that ends in a Nevada brothel. It\u2019s not hard to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-556180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}