Odom Sprains Ankle After Dunk

Just when you think Lamar Odom’s season can’t get any worse, it does.

Having played only 29 games with the Clippers and scheduled to wear a cast on his sore right wrist for two more weeks, Odom dunked a basketball in Thursday’s shoot-around, stepped on the ball, fell and sprained his right ankle.

X-rays were negative, but the ankle was put in a soft cast.

This injury is expected to keep him out for two to four weeks.

“I’m sad,” said Odom. “There’s nothing I can do about it. It was a freak accident. I just want to do everything I can to get back as soon as possible.”

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Orlando’s Tracy McGrady got a major reaction for lobbing the ball off the backboard to himself for a dunk in Sunday’s All-Star game.

However, he may have gotten the idea from the Clippers’ Darius Miles, who did the same trick in the second half of Saturday’s rookie game.

Miles didn’t get the idea from anybody. In his case, it was an accident.

“I saw Kenyon [Martin] and Q [Quentin Richardson] on the other side of the floor and I had the ball in the middle,” said Miles.

“I jumped to throw the oop [lob] to Kenyon and I got caught in the air. And I just threw it off the backboard and caught it.”

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Michael Olowokandi came into Thursday’s game having averaged 12.3 points over his last four games.

Of course, he might have been more consistent, going 20-27-2-0.

He played the last two after getting five teeth loosened in a collision against Boston. A dentist is still working on his teeth.

Olowokandi has never worn a mouthpiece and says he doesn’t intend to start.

“That was the first time it’s happened and I’ve been playing basketball for seven years,” he said. “So I figure I won’t wear a mouthpiece for another seven years.”

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Keyon Dooling, out since the second week of the season because of a badly sprained left ankle, returned to action Thursday.

Mark Heisler