Ex-teammate: Odom has options

NEW ORLEANS -- Lamar Odom was only deactivated by the Dallas Mavericks on Monday, not waived, and it would be too late for the Los Angeles Lakers to sign their former Sixth Man of the Year in time for the playoffs anyway, had he been waived.
Those technicalities didn't stop Odom's childhood friend and former Lakers teammate Metta World Peace from devising a plan to bring Odom back to the purple and gold, however.

“ Maybe he can come back and be a ball boy and then next year, come play. That's what he should do. He'd be the first ball boy in the NBA that can play. Come back; get the towels and next year, play. Why not?
” -- Metta World Peace on Lamar Odom's future

"Maybe he can come back and be a ball boy and then next year, come play," World Peace said with a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin on his face following the Lakers' 93-91 win over the New Orleans Hornets on Monday. "That's what he should do. He'd be the first ball boy in the NBA that can play. Come back; get the towels and next year, play. Why not? He should be a scout. Lamar should be a scout."
ESPN.com's Marc Stein reported that Odom's departure will be immediate and that the Mavericks intend to simply list him as inactive for the rest of the season instead of outright releasing him, leaving open the possibility that they could still trade him after the season in conjunction with the draft. Any team that has Odom on its roster as of June 29 must buy him out by that date for $2.4 million or otherwise accept responsibility for the full $8.2 million that Odom is scheduled to earn in 2012-13.
World Peace, who knows a thing or two about unhappy endings after requesting a trade out of Indiana following the fallout from the 2004 "Malice at the Palace," said Odom's departure could have been worse.
"Everybody involved has done great things," World Peace said. "From (Mark) Cuban, to Rick Carlisle to Lamar, so they all know what's best. The main thing is what's best for the Dallas organization, starting with Mark Cuban, and then I'm sure Carlisle was consulted and then you got Jason Kidd and Dirk (Nowitzki), so that was probably the best thing that they can do for their organization. The good thing about it is it was just a departure. That's awesome. It wasn't like it was any stories like arguing with the coach or nothing. That's always good when you can end a relationship, maybe not on a good note, but on a decent note. That's always good."
World Peace said he has not spoken to Odom recently, but went on a classic stream-of-consciousness rant about Odom's career options moving forward, perhaps channeling the part of him that chose to embark on a stand-up comedy tour during last summer's NBA lockout.
"Lamar should just like for one month, just be a boy scout and wear the outfit," World Peace, taking the joke a step further. "Just have fun. You're getting paid."
He was then asked, What kind of merit badges would Odom earn?
"It would probably something that had to do with candy ... Skittles ... It would probably taste good," World Peace said. "Sweet. Edible. I guess."
As a reporter started to ask a question about the Lakers' pivotal game against the San Antonio Spurs coming up on Wednesday, World Peace interrupted the query to continue with the rant.
"What's the biggest mountain in the world?" World Peace blurted out. "(Odom) should hike it. He should go hike it. Do something that's never been done."
A reporter pointed out that Nowitzki had spent the summer after the Mavericks' 2007 first-round playoff upset against the Golden State Warriors hiking the Bavarian Alps.
"He hiked a big mountain?" World Peace asked.
No, just mountains, the reporter replied.
"The big one," World Peace said. "I'm talking about the big one. Dirk, he ain't hiking that big mountain. He ain't going on the big one. I'm going on the big one."
And with that, World Peace was ready to answer questions about the Spurs.

Facebook buys Instagram...but for what?

There's a lot of speculation today about why Facebook would spend $1 billion to acquire the uber-hip photo-sharing app Instagram. To some, it seems obvious; to others, it's the biggest sign yet of a growing Web bubble. To me, it just raises question after question, and the biggest one is "why." What does Facebook gain from buying Instagram? Let's look at some of the possible reasons, shall we?

Users: Instagram has 30 million users and a potentially huge influx of more, thanks to its recent expansion onto the Android platform. Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom says he thinks Instagram should easily reach 100 million users--that's significant engagement, for sure.
But Facebook doesn't need users. Facebook has users--some 850 million of them. And while I've argued that Facebook's growth potential is slowing, the social network could scoop up another 100 million global users with its eyes closed over the next year, especially as its global expansion increases. And I'm not sure Facebook is in the market for more users so much as it's in the business of figuring out how to make money off those users. So far, Instagram represents more users, but not any more revenue: more mouths to feed, if you will. Facebook shouldn't be after more un-monetized users, at this point.
Mobile: My colleague Rafe Needleman and others argue that mobile engagement is the biggest reason Facebook lusts after Instagram. A large (and growing) and super-engaged mobile audience and decent mobile uploading (which Facebook still lacks, for some reason): that must be it. Mobile is where it's at, after all: go mobile or die.
That doesn't feel right either. After all, mobile is both boon and bane for Facebook. Again, Facebook already has mobile users: in December 2011, it said 425 million monthly active users got to Facebook on a mobile device. It has mobile apps now on every platform--the fact that they're not very good, in some cases, doesn't mean they're not in wide use. Facebook doesn't have a problem with acquiring mobile users: it has a problem making money off them.
If you believe Facebook's S-2 filing in advance of its upcoming IPO, the company is, in fact, deeply concerned that an expanding mobile base could be a serious problem for its business. Remember this?

"Although the substantial majority of our mobile users also access and engage with Facebook on personal computers where we display advertising, our users could decide to increasingly access our products primarily through mobile devices. We do not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products, and our ability to do so successfully is unproven."

So, then, why buy a primarily mobile app that doesn't currently, as far as we know, make any money?

Instagram's stated goal has been to build lots of users, then serve them ads--the song of every app maker on the market. Well, they'll probably get a lot more users from a Facebook purchase, but how long does it actually take to make back a billion dollars, especially when no one has yet managed to rake in significant dough from mobile ads? It seems to me that an acquisition like this could actually deepen Facebook's mobile woes, at least in the short term. Yes, Facebook needs to be mobile, but isn't Instagram just another pressure point?
Competition: As investor Chris Dixon put it on Twitter, "Giving up 1% of your market cap to take out your biggest threat is a savvy move."
That's an argument that could have legs. Instagram CEO Systrom told Venture Beat that it plans to "help every user on earth share their lives and discover the world through a series of beautiful images." (Emphasis added.) That's an ambition worthy of Mark Zuckerberg himself, and Android expansion is a major step in the world domination direction.
Or is it?
Photo filter apps are hardly the precious commodity they were when Instagram was still frustratingly iPhone-only. Lightbox, PicPlz, Little Photo, Magic Hour ... here's a list of just 10 apps that easily replace the filtering capabilities of Instagram on Android, and there are many more out there.
And if it's filters plus a new community to sign up for that you're after, why, Facebook and Instagram competitor Path are also on Android. I'd argue, however, that considering the wide breadth of Android users, most of them are not, in fact, in search of yet another hip new photo-sharing network to sign up for, which is its own potential growth issue for Instagram. If Android users already have Picasa for photo sharing, lots of good app replacements for applying filters, Facebook for social networking, and Path for all of the above, is the hipster allure of Instagram enough to get them signing up in droves? Or is that just the San Francisco Bay Area bubble talking?


(Side note: Why didn't Facebook just buy Path, an upstart social network founded by former Facebook platform developer Dave Morin, which lots of Facebook users are using to funnel filtered photos onto Facebook itself? Bad blood? Future story? Anyway, as I was saying ...)
Data: OK, so if it's not users, it's not mobile, and it's not taking out the competition, maybe it's just data. Instagram's 30 million users have uploaded some 100 million photos that are conveniently geo-tagged and maybe kind of personal.
Really? Facebook needs more personal data? Facebook's users upload 100 million photos a day. They're not only geo-tagged, they're also tagged with precise business locations and other people, all of whose information is also already on Facebook. Instagram doesn't strike me as the treasure trove of personal data that Facebook needs to finally, at long last, crack the nut on targeting ads.
The questions go on and on. There are a few answers that do make sense: the acquisition keeps Instagram away from Google and Twitter, both major competitors. Notably, it gets some decent engineering into the House of Facebook that can shore up Facebook's mobile-uploading and site-viewing interfaces, both of which badly need an overhaul. And maybe all the above data points, in aggregate, do actually add up to $1 billion in reasons.
But I can't help it: I still feel like there are more questions than answers to why this price tag makes sense. I hope Facebook isn't getting distracted by hipster buzz or the photo-sharing bubble, especially at a time when its business decisions need to be as sound as possible to shore up future investor confidence. Don't spend those billions before you've got them, guys.