Inside his Fresno State office, Jerry Tarkanian cradled that landline receiver between his ear and chin, pursuing an agenda with Lamar Odom that seemed to conflict with nature itself: Chasing the nation's No. 1 recruit away from Las Vegas.

"What are they going to do for you at Vegas?" I heard Tark ask him. "They'll get you laid, that's it."

View photos Lamar Odom was found unconscious in a Nevada brothel. (AP) More

Tark was out of the running for Odom, and wanted to make sure the teenage prodigy's one-and-done NBA lottery talent matriculated outside of his conference – never mind a Runnin' Rebels program that had cast Tark away.

Go to UConn, Tark told Odom on the phone. Or Kentucky.

"They'll get you ready for the NBA," Tark said.

As it turned out, Odom's college recruitment became one more manipulated cluster amid a lifetime of them. No one prepared Odom for much of anything – least of all a tortured, pained life of tragedy, celebrity and addiction.

Nearly 20 years later, the end threatened to come for Odom outside Vegas, in a "Cathouse" brothel chain made famous on – you guessed it – a television reality show. The spokesman for Odom's darkest hours turned out to be a legalized pimp named Dennis Hof. HBO abandoned his business' reality show years ago, but the owner of the Love Ranch has somehow found a way to use Odom's tragedy to rebrand his chain of family entertainment.

In recent days too, the Kardashians refused to stop exploiting Odom on that reality show, turning what appeared to be a lost soul in crisis reaching out to his ex-wife only to have his phone calls manufactured into Khloe-Kim argument fodder for one more dreadful episode.

Sex, drugs, a disconsolate Khloe, and Kobe leaving the Lakers locker room at the MGM Grand Arena to get to the hospital. Poor Lamar Odom, unwittingly delivering them a trailer.

So, Khloe ended up at his bedside in Vegas, with her mother, Kris Jenner, dramatically pacing outside Sunrise Hospital in Vegas. The Rev. Jesse Jackson emerged onto the scene to make public proclamations. All the way until now, Odom played the part of a prop, a recurring character in the Kardashian cesspool.

Truth be told, the Kardashians transformed Odom's frailties and flaws into a societal fascination. Around the Lakers, they would always tell you that the scrutiny of the show played a part in his undoing, that it made a largely shy and private guy far more exposed and vulnerable than he ever imagined. Privately, Odom would tell friends that he never imagined the impact that an entanglement with the Kardashians' glare would have on his existence.

View photos Khloe Kardashian with Odom after he won the 2011 Sixth Man of the Year award. (AP) More

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