Odom does what he can in time left

A huge white T-shirt hangs prominently in Lamar Odom's Staples Center locker.

It serves not as clothing, but as a memorial.

On the shirt is a drawing of the smiling face of Odom's infant son Jayden, who was 6 months old last summer when he died suddenly in his crib.

Odom walked to that shirt Sunday afternoon with a sigh.

"Life is pain," he said.

He had just finished throwing his aching body around the court for 35 minutes in the Lakers' 113-100 playoff loss to the Phoenix Suns. Now he was going to do something even more difficult.

He was going to get dressed.

As he gingerly pulled up his pants, he gasped. As he carefully stretched into his shirt, he groaned.

When he finally turned around to face the media, he apologized for the giant beads of sweat that still rolled off his face. Some of it was from the game. But some of it was from that pain.

He took a giant swig of grape juice from a bottle. He stared into the distance and winced.

"It is what it is," Odom said.

Except when it's something much more.

As the Lakers predictably fell behind three games to one in an NBA first-round series that should end Wednesday in Phoenix, Odom's story was about more than his 17 second-half points and 10 second-half rebounds.

It was about more than how he fought through three injuries that would sideline most men -- torn shoulder cartilage, hyperextended elbow, sore knee -- to make plays and lead cheers.

It was even about more than how, after great personal strife, he has had an extraordinary season that should rank among the most heartfelt in Lakers history.

Sunday was about all of those things, but none of those things.

Because Sunday was mostly about how Lamar Odom may be doing them for the Lakers for the last time.

This team will change. It has to change. As anyone watching Sunday will agree, the Lakers have become the Denvers and Minnesotas of the NBA, only with cooler uniforms.

As constructed, they are capable of making the playoffs and stealing a game or two, but nothing more.

As constructed, Kobe Bryant needs some all-star help.

And perhaps the best person to be traded for that help is Odom, who, because his style clashes with Bryant's, may have more value somewhere else.

And that's a shame, because, as Sunday again proved, no Laker has inspired more.