The Los Angeles Lakers are a dominating force on the NBA scene once again this season, and the team's incredible depth has skyrocketed their worth, taking their “Bench Mob” with them. Speculation has arisen in Lakerland recently concerning the future of Lamar Odom, and it will be more than interesting to follow the Lakers' newest sixth man throughout the course of this season. Odom's outburst during the start of the preseason was nullified recently when the power forward publicly accepted his position as part of the team's talented reserve unit, and he made up for the recent wrongdoing by claiming, “That was my alter-ego talking. That's Odom, not Lamar. Seriously, I'm being dead serious. Lamar's a good locker room dude. I don't want to be detrimental to the team, especially when it's a championship-caliber team.”

This statement was good news for all Lakers fanatics, as fears of Odom demanding a trade or lashing out against his team evaporated with the sighs of relief following the forward's acceptance speech to the bench. Overall, Lamar Odom is not one to complain, and he's taking his newfound role as the team's sixth man to a higher degree, playing it up as much as he can. While Odom is one of the top players in the league when he's hot, it's his streakiness that is a problem for him, and Los Angeles coach Phil Jackson is trying to ease the hit-or-miss tendencies by placing him on the team's reserve, where he is finding a new role in sparking the fire behind bench production. Like other key players to sit the bench to spark the second unit (San Antonio with Manu Ginobli, Utah with Andrei Kirilenko and Dallas with Jason Terry), the Lakers have seen better play in their reserve unit lately, and especially in Odom, who can dominate opposing teams' second-string power forwards.

Odom got knocked out of a starting position for the Lakers this season when Andrew Bynum returned to the court after recovering from an injury, and initially the forward was furious with coach Phil Jackson for bumping him down, griping the most about the fact that he's in a contract year and needs to perform well this season to continue making the big bucks. Rumors of a Lamar Odom trade have been lingering ever since this development, but so far the forward continues to contribute to the Lakers' reserve, helping make Los Angeles' bench the second-highest-scoring reserve group in the entire NBA with an average of 37.2 points per game (Minnesota is first with 38.9). Odom's sixth man status could be hurting his career, however, as his numbers are starting to go downhill. Last season, the 6'10” forward averaged 14.2 points per game, 10.6 rebounds per game and 3.5 assists per game, compared with this November's averages of 9.5 points per game, 6.3 rebounds per game and 2.2 assists per game.

When push comes to shove, the looming question is still whether or not Odom will stay or go. It's yet up in the air as nothing is settled permanently, but the one thing that's for sure is that this season marks the very first one that Lamar Odom is not a starter, from his grade school days though his nine years in the NBA. Anyone with Los Angeles Lakers tickets has seen Odom rock the Staples Center for the last four years, but the tides could be changing for him. The former Miami player has always been at the top of the pack, playing one season at Rhode Island where he was named honorable mention All-America by the Associated Press, First Team All-Atlantic 10 Conference and Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year in his only collegiate season before being drafted to the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round of the NBA Draft in 1999. Odom played with the Miami Heat until he was picked up by the Lakers in a 2004 trade along with Caron Butler, Brian Grant and a future first round pick for Shaquille O'Neal. Odom has been playing in Lakerland ever since, helping most recently to lead the Lakers to the NBA Finals in 2008. If you haven't yet caught Lamar Odom hooping it up for Los Angeles, get game tickets from http://www.stubhub.com/los-angeles-lakers-tickets before a possible trade occurs.