Lamar Odom? Or Trevor Ariza?

Which free agent do the Lakers keep?

Which do they let go away?

The answer?

Neither.

Lakers owner Jerry Buss can solve this.

Just pay both of them and raise prime-seat ticket prices to cover the additional outlay.

Have you bought tickets for Lakers games lately? Me neither. Because they already are too expensive for the general public, aside from those few around the upper rim of the arena.  So whatever the Lakers charge for tickets in coming seasons … well, it doesn’t matter to 99.9 percent of the fans who lined their victory parade route today or jammed into the Coliseum for the victory rally. None of those people — you or me — are buying any of the elite seats at Lakers games.

A tiny fraction of Lakers fans buy up the prime seats in Staples Center, and the Lakers can and should pay for Odom and Ariza by hiking seat prices for the best of those seats. And I’m fairly sure those fans won’t care or even notice.

OK, what do the Lakers need to keep both players?

Lamar Odom is coming off a season in which he was on the books for $14.1 million. Ariza earned $3.1 million.

Odom is 30 this year, has said he wants to stay in Los Angeles and is one of the most erratic players in the league. His highs are pretty high but his lows are fairly low, and his negotiating leverage isn’t as great as it was a few years ago. He has to know that he is unlikely to get anyone to offer him $14 million a season.

Ariza isn’t quite the player Odom is, but he is only 24 this year, and deserves a significant raise. His defense, speed and improved scoring ability probably will make him a more attractive commodity on the open market.

So,  the Lakers should offer Odom four years at $11 million per season and Ariza, oh, $8 million per his next four years.

Thus, the Lakers will be paying those two $19 million next season. Which sounds like a lot — but is only $1.8 million more than they paid for them in the championship season just concluded.

(Yes, we know Odom actually got only $11.4 million this season, and that the $14.1 million figure reflects a bonus paid out years ago and is what he costs toward the salary cap.)

By paying Odom and Ariza, the Lakers will go that much further over the salary cap (whatever it is, next season), and that will cost the team, too. Let’s say the additional luxury tax equals the rise in their combined salaries — which we already decided is $1.8 million. Taking us to $3.6 million.

Still, just let Lakers fans pay for it. The fans who go to games and sit in the good seats. Let’s say, the 8,000 of them (from the total crowd of 18,997) who buy the best seats.

If we divide those 8,000 seats into $3.6 million, we come up with $450. That is how much the Lakers need to charge their top customers over the course of the 41-game home schedule — another $450 per those 8,000 seats. Which is barely an extra $10 per seat and is so doable for a team that just won a championship.

What is $450 to the people on the lower levels and in the luxury boxes? Little. Very little.

It’s one dinner with wine at some posh restaurant. Maybe a month of pedicures. One hundred and fifth gallons of gas. To the heavy hitters of the lower bowl, $450 is what they may lay out in tips in any given day. That is an inconsequential sum.

So let those folks pay for Odom and Ariza.

(And if you want to be really progressive about this, the Lakers can pro-rate the seat hike according to the current price of tickets. Thus, Jack Nicholson gets a hike in excess of $450 for his on-the-court season ticket, and somebody behind the basket in the second deck pays less.)

The Lakers need both Odom and Ariza if they want to win another title or two before Kobe Bryant’s inevitable decline gathers speed. I expect to see it next season, actually, after what he has done since November of 2007 — which is to play in 162 regular-season games, eight rounds of playoffs and the Olympics. He already doesn’t have quite the spring in is legs he did a few years back.

So, the time to win again and perhaps again is right now. The next few years. Certainly before Kobe is 35 or even 34. So, the Lakers need to lock up their key guys.

I would assume Jerry Buss already is doing the arithmetic. And he knows his market and what it will bear. (And none of this takes into account what figures to be significant gains in revenue from merchandise and marketing.)

And Buss has to know that, absolutely, he can pay to keep Odom and Ariza in their Lakers uniforms — by shifting the expense to his wealthiest customers.

So just do it. Make the players happy. Make the fans happy. Make sure the question of “Odom or Ariza?” turns into a statement of “Odom and Ariza.”