Bulls’ Artest Has Fond Memories of Odom

Before the Clippers played the Chicago Bulls on Monday night at Staples Center, Bull second-year swingman Ron Artest talked about his old friend from Queens, N.Y., Lamar Odom, whom he has known since he was 8.

“He wasn’t even the best player on his team back then,” said Artest, a former St. John’s player selected by the Bulls with the 16th pick in the 1999 draft. “He had two older point guards who were nice. So, Lamar was able to do whatever he wanted to do. . . . He’s always been a shooting guard. When he was younger, he had the same skills he has now but he had guys on his team who had handles [to play point guard].”

Artest, a 6-foot-6 leaper who attended LaSalle Academy in Manhattan, said he was taller than Odom until they began high school. That’s when Odom had a growth spurt.

“He was all butter [unstoppable] after that,” Artest said. “He got great teaching right out of the ‘hood.”

Now that both players are in the NBA, along with Chicago big man Elton Brand, who played on the same AAU team as Artest, Odom is still versatile. Even if he still doesn’t often use his nondominant right hand.

“Lamar has always been a left-only player,” Artest said. “He was going left some way or another. He’s been a leader all of his life. I learned how to play the entire game through Lamar. He does everything every night. He can pass, rebound and shoot. He can do it all.”

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With the All-Star break coming up this weekend, the up-and-down Clippers are still searching for an identity, Coach Alvin Gentry said.

“In general we have a feeling of what we are going to get but I still have a tough time knowing the true personality of our team,” Gentry said. “The only way you can have an identity is with consistency. We’ve been struggling with that.

“But I just think the way we lost games has hurt us some. When we lost close game after close game where we didn’t make very good decisions, [that] hurt us. And until we can correct that, we’ll [still be without an identity].”

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After rookies Darius Miles and Quentin Richardson spoke with Gentry after playing limited minutes in Saturday’s victory over the Portland Trail Blazers, veteran shooting guard Eric Piatkowski said he understood how they felt.

“My rookie season, I was down all of the time because I wasn’t getting any playing time,” said Piatkowski, who is in his seventh NBA season. “I didn’t get any playing time for two or three years. It’s something you have to learn. They have so many fantastic years ahead of them. They can play for 17, 18 more years.

“They were given an awful lot right away. So it’s hard to take when you start not getting all the minutes you want or feel you deserve. But every rookie in the league gets upset about their playing time. There are a lot of games left in the season and we are going to need them.”

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Power forward Brian Skinner, who sat out Saturday’s game to attend a funeral in Texas, was back in uniform Monday night but did not play.