Kriti Mehrotra
Lamar Joseph Odom was a young boy growing up in Queens, New York, when he first developed a passion for basketball, and it remained unwavering as the years passed. In fact, he played for Christ the King Regional High School for three years before transferring to Redemption Christian Academy and then St. Thomas Aquinas High School in his senior year. He was so skilled that he was already recognized nationally by the time he graduated, and he played in college for a while before joining the NBA for 14 years. But alas, his journey has been quite controversial, so here’s what we know about his career and financial standing.
How Did Lamar Odom Earn His Money?
Lamar Odom was just in his senior year of high school when he not only earned the title of Parade Player of the Year but was also honored with positions on All-American First Teams. He subsequently had the opportunity to play at the Adidas youth basketball camp alongside rising legend Kobe Bryant, yet he still chose not to make the immediate jump to the NBA. He believed he wasn’t ready, which worked in his favor a bit. His ensuing academic controversies and legal issues ultimately led to his scholarship to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) being revoked. If he had made himself available to the league and then gotten in serious trouble, he could have faced sanctions, fines, or bans.
According to records, the validity of Lamar’s ACT score had come into question; he was once allegedly arrested for hiring a sex worker, and he had received illicit payments from a coach. The aftermath of it all was his transfer to the University of Rhode Island and being forced to miss the entire 1997–1998 season. Nevertheless, he returned with a bang for 1998-1999, averaging 17.6 points per game to lead his team to the national conference championship. The fact that he was then named Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year and honored with a spot on the First Team All-Conference team then drove him to make himself eligible for the 1999 draft.
Lamar was selected by the Los Angeles Clippers as the 4th overall pick in 1999, but his time with them didn’t really go as planned, despite his playing well. That’s because his ambitions were greater than their reality of not being able to move up in the Western Conference, and he also violated their anti-drug policy twice in 8 months in 2001. In the end, he became a restricted free agent in 2003 before signing with the Miami Heat for their astounding 6-year, $65 million offer. He wanted to do well, but was traded, along with teammates Brian Grant and Caron Butler, to the Los Angeles Lakers for legend Shaquille O’Neal before he had a chance to do so.
Lamar was proud to be a Laker, not only because he secured back-to-back championships with them in 2009 and 2010 but also because he was under their banner when he was named 6th Man of the Year in 2011. However, things changed as he was suddenly traded to the Dallas Mavericks right after – after 7 seasons together – which is allegedly when his addictions spiraled, and his career declined. The E! reality star with ‘Khloé & Lamar’ (2011-2012) reportedly never saw eye to eye with the Mavericks’ owner, so he ended up being traded back to the Los Angeles Clippers in summer 2012. According to records, he averaged career lows in the ensuing season as he was admittedly out of shape for half the time, yet he still wanted to play, perform, and prove his mettle to the world.
Therefore, when Lamar became an unsigned free agent in 2013, he chose to spread his wings in the Spanish League for a year, but had little impact due to his personal substance issues. He recovered over time before contemplating joining the Chinese Basketball Association in 2018, but he realized he was no longer fit enough to play, so he began dabbling in other entrepreneurial endeavors. In fact, he briefly operated a senior living platform called Odom Senior Care, currently owns his own film-music production company, Rich Soil Entertainment and is now focusing on his fashion line, Le Saint Noir. He is even the proud brains behind his own cryptocurrency memecoin called $ODOM memecoin, is dabbling in the world of sustainable bottled water with a company named Meta H2O, and has recently established an AI-powered health & wellness website called HealLO.
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Lamar Odom’s Net Worth
With Lamar’s 14-year NBA career, Nation Team experiences, stints in reality television, advertising campaigns for various brands, sponsorships, and entrepreneurial endeavors, it’s clear he has accumulated significant wealth over time. His precise earnings per year are unclear, since he has understandably always kept the records private, but we do know he signed some extremely lucrative contracts while in the NBA. In fact, when he first joined the league in 1999, he had closed on a 3-year, $7.8 million rookie deal. Then, when he moved to the Lakers in 2009 after being traded by the Heat despite their 6-year, $65 million deal, he signed a 4-year offer at $33 million plus bonuses.
From what we can tell, Lamar’s base salary during his time with the Mavericks and the Clippers in the early 2010s was around $8 million, but it likely decreased when he moved to the Spanish League. He reportedly also secured good money after winning a bronze medal with Team USA at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, and then a gold at the 2010 World Championship in Istanbul, Turkey. As if that’s not enough, he has likely earned millions through E!’s ‘Khloé & Lamar,’ his cameo in HBO’s ‘Entourage’ season 2, and his long stint in season 3 of CBS’ ‘Celebrity Big Brother.’ He has also recently shared his life experiences on Netflix’s ‘Untold: The Death & Life of Lamar Odom’ and on TMZ’s ‘Lamar Odom: Sex, Drugs, and Kardashians.’ Taking all these aspects into account, along with his former lifestyle, substance issues, reports suggesting he has since sold his NBA championship rings due to financial strains, we believe his net worth is roughly $1 million as of writing.
