Lamar Odom is so out of here

At the end of last season, Mike Bresnahan and I wrote that the Lakers could be expected to shop Lamar Odom -- by which, of course, we meant we expected them to shop him.

Laker officials didn’t like that -- since they had no intention of shopping him.

That didn’t mean they had decided to keep him. They hadn’t made any decision at all.

The problem was, with Odom’s $14 million-per contract running out this season, no decision was tantamount to a decision.

When Odom’s people sounded out the organization on an extension, the word came back no. So it may not have been a coincidence that Odom said he “chilled” over the summer rather than work out and joked that Phil Jackson must have “hit his head” if he thought he’d come off the bench -- although Jackson hadn’t said anything about him coming off the bench.

With Lamar’s head screwed on right, he still might not work at small forward. In his funk, he was quickly demoted in favor of Vlade Radmanovic, who has 10% of his game -- but can shoot.

Odom’s contract has been the shadow looming over his future here from the moment they got Pau Gasol.

The Lakers got Gasol so cheap because they were the only team willing to take on an additional $90 million in salary and luxury tax the next three seasons.

(I’m not even factoring in upcoming Laker costs such as Andrew Bynum’s new deal, whether it’s this fall or next summer, with promising Trevor Ariza coming up, too.)

(Oh, and then there’s Kobe Bryant.)

The only way for the Lakers to soften the hit was to move someone making big money.

OK, who among them making big money can be a free agent next summer?

Let’s see, there’s Kobe and Lamar.

Lamar is not only on his way out, he has been for months. Even if no one would acknowledge it, they could all see where this was heading, which was why Lamar’s head was in a bad place and the coaches cut him no slack.

One thing could still change this equation: Lamar going back to playing as well as he did after Gasol arrived.

That would give the Lakers a reason to try to find another solution, but it hasn’t happened yet.

-- Mark Heisler