Lamar Odom Traded To Clippers, Mo Williams To Jazz, According To Report

Here is the full breakdown of Friday’s four-team trade:

Dallas

If Williams had declined the option, the deal would have have fell through. The Mavericks needed to take back Odom’s salary in the trade for the deal to go through, but they were not interested in Williams or absorbing his salary. The Jazz were brought in as a third team capable of taking on the point guard, presuming he didn’t opt for free agency.

If Dallas had been unable to trade Odom by June 30, they would have had to pay the forward $2.4 million of his $8.9 million due next season in order to cut him.

Via ESPN’s Marc Stein:

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Odom was traded by the Lakers to the Mavericks before the start of the 2012 season. He can be bought out of his contract for $2.4 million, which any team would likely do instead of paying the $8.2 million team option remaining on his contract.

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As such, the Mavericks will be looking for a team who can a) absorb Odom’s full 2012-13 cap figure ($8.2 million) without sending guaranteed salary back, b) isn’t concerned with tying up $2.4 million in empty salary, and c) likes whatever sweetener Dallas offers. Given that no team will likely forgo waiving Odom and pay him the full $8.2 million next season, trading for him guarantees that $2.4 million in empty salary.

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Cuban said he had seen Odom become disinterested with the game several -- well, apparently, exactly 17 -- times before.

However, Cuban took responsibility for the failure to get Odom to adapt to Dallas’ environment after his team acquired the Kardashian-espoused forward in the offseason.

“We’ve got to be able to look down that bench and count on folks to be consistent,” Nelson said, according to the AP. “Unfortunately with him in his state right now, he’s just not capable of doing that. I say that with his best interest in mind. He’s going through a very, very tough personal time. We certainly understand that. But we’re in the thick of it in the West and we’ve got to win games.”

Odom arrived in Dallas after enduring a difficult offseason. His 24-year-old cousin was shot and killed in July, and one day after attending the funeral, Odom was the passenger in a car that was involved in an accident that killed a teenage boy.