Hollywood Blvd. News – Los Angeles Clippers Edition
- Updated: October 18, 2015
The Los Angeles Clippers have been on a long trip to Shanghai, and only just returned back to the good ol’ U.S. of A. The traveling wasn’t done there though. When the team landed on Wednesday Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and DeAndre Jordan got on another plane to Las Vegas to visit Lamar Odom in hospital.
Prior to the team practicing yesterday, Griffin said the following of their trip,
“He probably has no idea we were there, but just to be there and to see him, hopefully he knows there’s a lot of guys that love him and want to see him do better and want to see him get better.”
The LA Times reports that he learned a lot from Odom during their time together on the 2012-13 Clippers team.
“He was great for me in teaching me that you’re going to have bad games, you’re going to have a bad stretch of the season; just shake it off, stay loose, stay happy,” Griffin said. “And he was great about it, keeping us happy.”
Coach Doc Rivers also spoke about Odom while the team was in China:
It’s just really a sad thing,” said Rivers. “Lamar was here. He was one of the first calls I made when I got here, if you remember. We brought him in, and I basically told him, ‘Get right and you have a job.’ Obviously, he couldn’t get that part of it right.
What I told my players was that you have to enjoy each other more,” Rivers said. “Lamar had it right on the court. He’s the exact opposite of half the players — they don’t get it right on the floor. They don’t figure out how to play for their teammates and to be a great teammate. Most guys never get that. That’s what Lamar had.
That’s why everyone is so emotional; he is a great teammate. Every player that he played with, you hear it now. Once he left the floor, that’s where he has a lot of demons. We talked about it a lot. I don’t know if that was the right conversation to have before a preseason game because the guys were very emotional about it, but I just thought it was the right thing to do.”
The LA Times writes the following:
Paul was so affected by the news of Odom’s condition that after the Clippers’ preseason loss in China on Wednesday, he delivered a special message to his former teammate on television: “We love you, man. Keep fighting.”
Added Paul: “LO is just one of those guys who, when he was on our team, he had that veteran leadership. He knew what it took to win. He was very lighthearted. When things got a little bit too serious, he was the one who kept us relaxed and laughed and stuff like that. He’s just an unbelievable guy.”
As a Lakers and Clippers fan, we hope to see LO pull out of this one. God bless.
Stay with us at Calisportsnews.com as we will keep you up-to-date on all things Los Angeles Clippers and the rest of the LA sports teams! All Cali, All the time!
Related Posts
About Holly Humphreys
