The Official Site of Jordan Farmar

Tue, Apr 7th 2009, 12:03

Jordan's Playboy.com blog: Farmar Five on 5 - April 7, 2009

What’s up guys? With 5 games to go, we’re not thinking ahead of ourselves. After Sunday’s close but exciting win over the Clippers we were 61-16 and just one game behind the Cavs for tops in the NBA but everyone in the league is jockeying for position and getting ready. Basketball is really fun, and there is nothing like NBA playoff basketball, when the games are coming at fans every night. There is just nothing like it.

Okay, let’s talk about Andrew Bynum at the Playboy Mansion. I’ve been to the Mansion, Trevor Ariza can’t wait to visit, Shaq has had private parties there. It’s like a rite of passage when you’re in L.A. Hef is a big Lakers fan and he’s close friends with our owner Dr. Buss. It’s something you want to experience, at least once, and you hear about the Mansion and Hef, they’re iconic figures. I’m glad Andrew had a good time, that he didn’t get into too much mischief. It’s also the times we live in, you can’t do anything or have any fun without other people finding out and your picture being all over the Internet. When we went on our recent long road trip, and Drew was rehabbing, we told him if he went out to have a good time but just to be careful. You don’t want people to get the wrong idea that he’s out partying and not working at trying to get back. It’s important that we enjoy life but that we also portray the right image to our teammates and our fans. I’m glad he had a fun night and didn’t hurt himself, and that he’s getting healthy, and that’s really what matters.

Drew has missed over 30 games but he practiced with the full team on the weekend. He looked really good, he was mobile, running up and down, he had some good hop in his legs and it was great to see. When he comes back, he could have a big impact on the Bench Mob, if he begins playing with us. He would help tremendously. People don’t really realize it, but he’s a very gifted passer, has a feel for the game and makes great assists and dishes for a 7-footer. He commands so much attention, he’s so big and strong and can score so well. When he rolls off a screen and roll, if the opponent doesn’t go with him, you can toss the ball anywhere by the rim and he’ll go ahead and dunk it. And he’s also a big presence defensively, blocking shots, clogging down that middle. That’s huge. That would definitely help our unit to be more aggressive out on the perimeter, make plays, go for steals, the things that we can do well, get out and run the way the second unit normally plays.

We’re not leaving the Pacific time zone for our last five games after coming back from that very tough seven-game road trip. Even though we were 5-2, we had to really fight for everything. If we’d gone 7-0 like we went 6-0 in our previous extended trip, it would’ve really built extreme confidence, and we would’ve been all ready to go for the playoffs. In the two games we lost, we just didn’t play the whole game the way we should. Those things can happen, being away from home, getting tired, going through different time zones, different cities, back-to-backs, all those factors that work against you. But it is what it is, part of the long NBA regular season grind. But slipping up made us realize that nothing’s going to be given to us. We’ve done a great job this season keeping our slip-ups to a minimum, and when those things happen—and this is a big positive—we get back on track right away. So we learned a couple of lessons. In order to play the right way, we have to use all our talents and weapons. That’s important going down this last stretch.

Honestly, I went through some tough stretches on the trip, when Coach Phil Jackson changed the line-up a bit. I went from 25 minutes in the first game against Chicago to about 9 minutes against Charlotte. Then I finished off the trip getting a solid 26 minutes, making a contribution and I played down the stretch to help us get that win.

We finished first in the West last year with 57 wins. We’ve now gone over 60 this year, the first time for the Lakers since ’99/‘00, so it has been a very good season. But the key is to keep winning and really fire on all cylinders down the stretch and continue to play hard during the playoffs. We don’t want anything like what we saw last year, to make it that far and not come home with the NBA Championship trophy. We got to get this done, no matter what it takes.

BTW, you can continue to find my Five on 5 Blog in the Entertainment section of the cool, new Playboy.com site. Keep up your e-mails and check back for my next dish.

—JFarm