Lamar Odom Wins Sixth Man of the Year Award

A halo appears above Lamar Odom as he addresses the press after receiving the NBA's Sixth Man award on Tuesday (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

In between hours of breaking down tape from Sunday's ugly loss to the New Orleans Hornets, Lakers' power forward Lamar Odom received the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year award today.

Odom started nearly half of the Lakers 82 regular season games this year, primarily due to injury to starting center Andrew Bynum. However, it was his energy off the bench that helped the Lakers through a sometimes-lackadaisical second half of the season, beginning with a run of 17 wins in 18 games following the All Star break.

Odom averaged a career-high 14.4 points on 53 percent shooting with 8.7 rebounds, 3.0 assists and made 38 percent of his three-point attempts to secure the award, given annually to the league's top reserve.

Let's hope this bit of good news is met with a solution to stop the Hornets' Chris Paul. Game 2 of the Western Conference Round 1 playoffs is Wednesday night at Staples Center.