Lamar Odom Calls LaVar Ball a 'Control Freak'

Lamar Odom isn’t a big fan of the way LaVar Ball is operating right now.

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Lamar Odom was a guest on Wednesday’s episode of Everyday Struggle, and during the course of his interview with Nadeska, DJ Akademiks, and Joe Budden, the former Lakers star touched on a range of different topics, including everything from athletes taking a knee during the national anthem to his last stint in rehab.

And of course, the Everyday Struggle crew had to ask Odom for his thoughts on LaVar Ball, who is once again dominating the headlines this week after announcing that he has pulled his youngest son LaMelo out of his high school in order to homeschool and train him following a disagreement with LaMelo’s high school coach. Seeing as how Odom still considers himself a Laker and will no doubt cross paths with LaVar at some point since his oldest son Lonzo is now running point for the team, Odom was asked what he thinks about LaVar making the decision to have LaMelo skip high school—and Odom responded the same way that most people have. He said he doesn’t agree with what LaVar did.

"That seems drastic," he said at about the 11:30 mark of the interview, "because you just gonna take him out of school because you don’t like the coach? What about if you don’t like the coach in his next basketball move or his move in college or the NBA if he makes it?… LaVar seems like a control freak, so maybe if he can’t control the team from the sideline, he might have a problem."

Odom might not necessarily rock with LaVar or how he has conducted himself since he came into the national spotlight, but he said that he does think Lonzo is going to have a big impact on the Lakers. Even though Odom doesn’t expect much from the Lakers this season—he refused to tell Budden which current Lakers players he considers to be "trash," but he didn’t deny that there's a lack of overall talent on the team right now—he believes Lonzo will put people in the seats at the Staples Center and help the team improve.

"I think Lonzo is going to help fill the stands, so I think that’s all that matters in that case," Odom said, while also addressing how he thinks Lakers players will react to LaVar during the upcoming season. "I don’t think [LaVar] can affect what happens in the locker room. I think they’ll be a lot better. They’ll suck but they’ll be a good suck."

Elsewhere in the interview, at around the 46-minute mark, Odom also touched on his current relationship with Kanye West, and he admitted that there isn’t much of a relationship to speak of at the moment despite the ties the two shared in the past when Odom was married to Kanye’s sister-in-law Khloé Kardashian.

"Kanye is a good dude, he was there for me when I was in a coma, and I woke up and seen Kanye," he said, before talking about why he hasn’t spoken with him much lately. "I would say [my relationship with Kanye] probably deteriorated with all the other relationships that were built [through the marriage to Khloé]. But it’s like that sometimes."

You can check out Odom’s full Everyday Struggle interview in the video above.

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