LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Lamar Odom, a former National Basketball Association champion who became a tabloid target before splitting from reality TV star wife Khloe Kardashian, is "fighting for his life" after a brothel binge in Nevada, TMZ reported on Tuesday.

The celebrity gossip website reported that Odom, who won NBA titles with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2009 and 2010, was hospitalised after he was found unconscious in his room at the Love Ranch, a legal brothel in Pahrump, Nevada.

According to reports, Khloe Kardashian, Kim Kardashian West, and Kris Jenner rushed to Lamar's hospital bed. Odom reportedly cannot breathe on his own and sources confirm the situation is "not good".

In August 2013, Odom, the subject of a rash of news stories about alleged drug use and troubles in his marriage to Kardashian, was arrested for drunk driving.

Kardashian filed for divorce from Odom in December 2013, although the split was not immediately finalised.

Odom, who was the 2011 Sixth Man of the Year as the NBA's top reserve and won Olympic bronze with the USA in Athens in 2004, has endured numerous personal hardships in his life.

He was raised by his grandmother after his mother died of colon cancer when he was 12 years old.

He was estranged from his heroin-addict father at an early age and in 2006, his six-month-old son Jayden, one of three children with his one-time girlfriend Liza Morales, died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

A number of NBA basketball stars and celebrities have expressed their concern on Twitter:

Miami Heat, the team which Odom played for in the early 2000s also tweeted the following: