The negotiations between Lamar Odom’s agent and the Lakers took a turn for the worse Monday afternoon, but it didn’t stop Odom from attending a celebration at the Nokia Theater for the release of the Lakers championship DVD.

Odom was about an hour and a half late, but said he wanted to attend to because “These are my brothers. We have a whole DVD about our season, it just seems surreal. You don’t ever know when or how or if you’re going to experience this again.”

It’s hard to say if it was the traffic on the way to downtown L.A. that was causing the change in mood, but it Odom certainly didn’t seem as calm or cool as he normally does.

Absolutely no one expected the negotiations to take this long and while he clearly wants to return to the Lakers, it was clear the process has worn on him.

“It’s business, you know what I’m saying,” he said. “It takes a little bit of the fun out of the game, but it’s part of it.”

Asked whether he felt at all unloved or unappreciated by the Lakers, Odom paused and said, “Ummm, it’s just the way it is. It’ll pay off.”

He did however acknowledge a bit of disappointment the negotiations haven’t gone as well as he’d hoped.

“It’s crazy because if you think about my career and playing basketball and somebody trying to do all the things to help a team win a championship, I felt like I’ve done that you know,” he said. “But it’ll pay off. It’ll pay off.”

Odom said he’d been laying low since the season ended and had made a point of not negotiating through the media because it was his intention to return to the Lakers and he didn’t want to influence the process taking place between his agent and the Lakers.