Like Fine Wine By Rich Hammond - Staff Writer - Daily News Lamar Odom has matured since his stint with the Clippers... It's no surprise Lamar Odom has embraced the Lakers, his new employers, but the Clippers? The team he ripped mercilessly on his way out of town a year ago? Strange, but true. Odom, at one point the NBA's leading "troubled young man," is back in Los Angeles, even if he might be difficult to recognize. Odom, by all accounts, is now a mature team leader, eager to show that his days of self-destruction, featuring two suspensions under the league's substance-abuse policy, have passed.

"I don't have any bad feelings toward the Clippers. Why should I?" Odom said. "Things work out for a reason. I went down to Miami and had a good year, and now I'm back. Everything worked out good. I'm basically OK now. I'm too happy of a person to hold any bad feelings like that."

It's not quite that simple. Odom and Clippers general manger Elgin Baylor met in January, when the Heat visited Los Angeles, and they apparently hashed out their differences, which were significant.

Baylor, through a team spokesman, "respectfully declined" to comment for this story, but Baylor made a huge statement last August when he not only declined to match the $65-million offer sheet Odom signed with the Miami Heat, but then bid farewell to Odom with a stinging personal indictment.

As part of his written statement, Baylor cited "issues of character and other risks involved" as the reasons the Clippers didn't want Odom, basically saying that he was a good player but a bad person.

By that time, as the Clippers were mulling the offer sheet, Odom had already blasted them with his "basketball hell" remark. Odom also called himself a "disgruntled employee" and said that if the Clippers signed him despite his wishes to leave, they would be "gutless."

"That's when I was leaving," Odom said last week. "I never had any bad feelings toward them. There's a business side to everything you do. That was just something that you would call hardball."

Odom's explanation ignores the fact that he also trashed the Clippers after he arrived in Miami, including one interview in which he said playing for the Clippers was the most annoying thing in his life and said leaving them was one of his happiest moments. Regardless, Odom seems to have moved on, his growth in the last year attributable to several factors. First, he forged a close relationship with Miami team president Pat Riley, who gave him a business card that featured the phrase "character and other issues involved." Odom carried it in his wallet all season. The other event was a tragedy, the death of Mildred Mercer, Odom's grandmother. Odom's father was a drug addict, and his mother, Kathy, died of cancer when he was 12, so Mercer took charge of raising him in a tough New York neighborhood. She stayed by his side until she died last June.

"It wasn't about just joining a new team," Odom said. "I also became the leader of my family."

It also helped that Odom's new teammates embraced him immediately.

"There was a perception about Lamar when he first got (to Miami), and everybody knew that, but from Day 1 he was all about, 'What can I do to help the team get better and help myself get better?' " said Brian Grant, Odom's teammate with the Heat and now the Lakers.

"He was with the coaches, before and after practice, working on his game. He was helping out the younger guys and showing the older players a lot of respect, which means a lot, and he was an all-around good guy. Everybody liked Lamar.

"The thing is, everybody makes mistakes. Every man in this league has done something wrong. But if the person can get past those mistakes, eventually everybody else will, too. The way things are set up in Miami, it's a very supportive environment, and I think Lamar was able to embrace that and be himself."

With that, Odom was able to leave behind his past demons. His admitted use of marijuana, which resulted in the two suspensions within an eight-month period in 2001, stayed in the past, and he thrived.

In 80 games last season, Odom averaged 17.1 points, 9.7 rebounds and 4.1 assists. He was booed when the Heat played the Clippers in Los Angeles, but he helped Miami to the second round of the playoffs.

"I could see he was happy, and I was really happy for him," Clippers forward Elton Brand said. "It's not like he was getting away to some place in the sticks. He was going to a place that could have presented even more challenges for him. Miami closes at 6 a.m., but he stayed away from all that.

"Everybody makes mistakes, especially at a young age, and in the NBA, when you're on your own for the first time at a young age and making millions of dollars, it's a challenge."

Odom never stumbled in Miami, but when Riley and general manager Randy Pfund learned they had a chance to bring Shaquille O'Neal to the Heat, they were willing to part with Odom.

Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak spoke with both men, former colleagues in the Lakers organization, and was satisfied with what they said about Odom's character.

"They indicated that he was a good guy and that he made dramatic improvements off the court, as far as responsibility and maturity, and we've already seen that to date here," Kupchak said. "We hope that will continue, and we have no reason to believe it won't."

And so Odom returned to Los Angeles, the city that once ruined him, and said he did so without any trepidation. At one time, he was the youngest team captain in the NBA, but it seems that only now is Odom, who turns 25 on Nov. 6, ready to be an adult. "When I left here, it was on a down note, but things happen that way," Odom said. "Everything I've been through has made me the person I am today. It's been a learning experience. "I've changed, in a good way. I'm much more mature. I left L.A. as an `old boy' and came back as a young man. It was my journey, the journey that the Lord put me on. I'm still here. "You take wine, and you take good people, people with good souls. What do they have in common?" Odom spreads his arms wide and waits for the answer. When it comes, he drops his arms to his sides and smiles broadly. Only time will tell if Odom has gotten better with age.