'He taught me to sign my own checks': Kobe Bryant's ex-LA Lakers teammate Lamar Odom posted an extended, emotional tribute to his 'teacher'

Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, and seven other died in a helicopter crash on Sunday.
Scroll down to read Odom's full tribute, which he posted to his Instagram on Sunday.
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Lamar Odom posted an extended and heartfelt tribute to Kobe Bryant on Sunday, following the death of his former LA Lakers teammate.

"He taught me so many things in life that were necessary on and off the court," Odom wrote in a post to Instagram. "On the court he taught me how to carve out defenses and how to take my time. How to make winning my ultimate goal. Off the court he taught me to sign my own checks lol."

Read Odom's full, unedited tribute here:

He taught me so many things in life that were necessary on and off the court. On the court he taught me how to carve out defenses and how to take my time. How to make winning my ultimate goal. Off the court he taught me to sign my own checks lol. Of course anyone who knows my story knows I've suffered a lot of loss but the only loss I can compare this to is when I lost my son. Even though our relationship wasn't father/son, it was more like him being a teacher and me being his brother. I'm glad I got to be the ying to your yang as far as the locker room was concerned. It was my pleasure. I couldn't even catch my breath today when I heard this news. I just knew if he was in a helicopter crash he would have been the one to survive. Somehow he would have jumped out and landed on his feet. I'm sitting here thinking about when we would be in practice scrimmaging and you would start the jump ball off with elbowing Sasha in the chest. Like dude it's 10:30 in the morning lol. You think watching him play was crazy, you gotta think in practice if you scored like 8-9 buckets throughout the practice you had a great practice. I've seen him knock off 13-14 in a row in practice!!!! I'm still waiting for the media to come out and say wrong report. No way God took my brother this early. I know I been through my own stuff in life with using drugs and not being good to myself. When I went through that Coma situation if God would have came to me and said we would take me and spare Kobe I would have rather that happened. In honor of my brother I'm up at 4am tomorrow to get to the gym! Gigi gone give you buckets!!!! I love you brother.