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Odom says Cuban kicked, heckled him during Mavs tenure

Issac Baldizon / National Basketball Association / Getty

Warning: Story contains coarse language

In his new book "Darkness to Light," former NBA star Lamar Odom said Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban both kicked and heckled him on different occasions during his short tenure with the team in 2011-12.

"During one homestand, I was having possibly the worst game of the season," Odom wrote.

"Head coach Rick Carlisle subbed me out, and I looked for a seat near the coaches, but none were available," he continued. "So I went down to the only open seat at the end of the bench. Right next to Cuban ... Cuban extended his right foot and kicked my shin. 'Come on, motherfucker!' he shouted. I was stunned. This wasn't a tap. I felt it. That was the last straw. It was painfully clear he did not respect me as a man."

Odom adds that had teammate Vince Carter not been there to calm him down, he may have engaged with Cuban physically.

Odom was traded to the Mavericks from the Los Angeles Lakers at the end of the NBA lockout in December 2011. He played 50 games for Dallas during that abbreviated season, shooting a career-low 35.2%.

He wrote he was not in a good place mentally when traded to the Mavericks, which was compounded by Cuban's heckling.

"(Cuban) rode me constantly, talked down to me, and questioned my manhood in front of others," Odom wrote. "During home games, he'd grab his usual courtside perch and proceed to hurl obscenities at me. 'You’re so fucking slow and out of shape,' Cuban screamed at me during a dead ball situation early in my ill-fated tenure with the Mavs. 'Waste of fucking money.'"

The Mavericks deactivated Odom late that season, and the following summer he was dealt to the Los Angeles Clippers in a four-team trade - where he played his final NBA season in 2012-13. In 2015, Odom almost died from a cocaine overdose during a stay at a Nevada brothel.

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