The 2007-08 season was a roller coaster ride for the Los Angeles Lakers. They began the season with Kobe Bryant holding firm to the trade demand he had made during the summer, and the team was simply hoping he would stick around and hang in there for a while.
He did, and the Lakers got off to a strong start. But when emerging center Andrew Bynum went down with a season-ending injury in January, their playoff hopes were suddenly in jeopardy.
Buy Lakers TicketsHowever, on Feb. 1, future Hall of Fame big man Pau Gasol arrived via trade, and the team hopped on a magic carpet ride that took it all the way to the NBA Finals. There, it revived its long-dormant rivalry with the Boston Celtics.
The Celtics outmuscled and outhustled the Lakers in six games, and they pulverized L.A. in Game 6, 131-92. But that wasn’t the end of the Lakers’ suffering, as their team bus got attacked by delirious Boston fans following the final contest.
Lamar Odom recalled how scary the situation was, especially since family members of Lakers players were also in the vehicle (h/t Lakers Daily).
“The first series is why I hate the Celtics,” Odom said. “‘Cause, they beat us by like 35 in Game 6. When you go to the Finals, you got your family on the bus – everybody on the bus and all that. They beat us by 35, these fans surrounded our bus and started shaking it.
“They didn’t care,” Odom said of the fans, when asked if the families were on the bus at the time.
Odom was a key member of those L.A. teams ever since he came in the Shaquille O’Neal trade in 2004. He struggled somewhat in his first three seasons with the team after being miscast as Bryant’s offensive sidekick, but after the Gasol trade, he thrived as a Swiss Army knife after the burden of being a scoring threat was lifted off his shoulders.
The Lakers rebounded from that loss in the 2008 finals to win the next two NBA championships, including one over the Celtics in 2010. Those two titles made Odom a central figure in team history, as he was the Lakers’ invaluable sixth man and one of its most vocal leaders.
