Ah, the Clippers. They've seen their team decimated by injuries, and have just two wins in their last 17 games. But why worry about that, when you can spend your time trying to analyze a gesture that may or may not have been made by a player on the opposing team?
The Clippers made a phone call to the league office to complain about something they felt Lamar Odom did to disrespect them when the two teams played each other last week. The Clips felt that Odom grabbed his crotch while hanging from the rim after a fourth quarter slam dunk, and the league is now said to be reviewing the incident.
You can see the play in question at about the 2:56 mark of this clip. You'll probably need to watch it more than once to catch what the Clippers are talking about, which begs the question, how could they possibly be offended by this? Odom drops his left hand to his groin area after the dunk, sure. But his back was to the Clippers' bench, and there was no player directly in his path that he could possibly be trying to "disrespect" with the gesture.
As for Odom's reaction to this news, he was predictably surprised -- probably because there truly wasn't any intent on his part to do anything to show up the other team. After the game he had said that it was "too bad the Clippers feel like that" and that he just "hung on the rim." Then over the weekend, he basically issued a non-apology apology.
"My intention is not to offend anybody, especially when I'm playing basketball," Odom said.
It seems like the Lakers should be the ones that are offended here, because Odom clearly didn't do anything wrong. The Clippers should start worrying about trying to win basketball games, instead of something players on the other team might be doing to them during their blowout losses.
