The Official Site of Jordan Farmar

Tue, Apr 14th 2009, 10:02

Jordan's Playboy.com blog: Farmar Five on 5 - April 14, 2009

Hey wassup, guys? Before I get to talking about our championship mission—we are finishing the regular season with the 2nd best record overall and are now getting ready for a possible playoff matchup with Utah or maybe Dallas—I’ve got some quick things on my mind.

I’ve got a lot of time for Kanye West, I mentioned liking what he did appearing with The Dream on “Walkin’ on The Moon.” Then last week that irreverent TV comedy cartoon South Park (“Fishsticks” episode) parodied Kanye and he responded by saying, “South Park murdered me…and it’s pretty funny.”

I’ve met Kanye, I’ve been to a few of his concerts, run into him backstage on the same tour as Rihanna. He’s a very good guy and came across humble. . . but when it comes to his craft, he’s very confident. He’s said he wants to “go down as the voice of a generation.” Some people might see him coming off as kind of showy. That’s definitely him, too, but it’s what makes him so special. He has a big personality but with the humility you see up close.

That parallels what we do as pro athletes. A lot of us are grateful for our blessings and humble off the court. But when it comes to showtime, you have to be almost cocky; you have to believe in yourself more than anybody else because you often have people telling when you’re growing up that you can’t do this or that. If you don’t believe in yourself to the utmost, you’re not going to make it to the top—it’s hard enough anyway. I think Kanye had the same thing throughout his life, people telling him what he couldn’t do or achieve. But he believed in himself so much that he made it happen. You can’t expect someone to make it to the top and then stop being that personality. That’s what made him special. Keep creating that great music, Kanye!

Last week, the NBA’s reigning MVP and our leader Kobe Bryant passed Charles Barkley to become the NBA’s 17th all-time leading scorer. Kobe didn’t make a big deal about it, as he and our team are focused on what’s ahead. But we got to give him props. He’s probably our best shooter, maybe even the best in the NBA. The degree of difficulty he takes on his regular shots is so high but he makes it look so easy. He’s very consistent. But he’s not one to catch and shoot, he’s not going to shoot it right away if you pass it to him. He wants to pump-fake and jab step, and get into his little rhythm. He’s one of the best pure shooters I’ve ever seen.

Okay, to our mission and the playoffs. Before opening tip-off this season I spoke on behalf of the team to the fans and said, “Everybody in the building knows we left off on the wrong foot last year. So we’ve got a lot of work to do.” Truth is, we were a little disappointed how we closed off in the Finals against the Celtics. We were so close to winning another championship for the franchise but we didn’t achieve our goal. But since that last day, the fans included, we’d all been looking forward to this season and the playoffs and to get it rolling again. Well, that time has come.

A Playboy.com reader asked whether trying for the best overall record meant anything more than just homecourt advantage in the NBA Finals. Yes. Mentally, just knowing you have the best record is positive. We have to play every night in the tough Western conference, so psychologically it’s great to have both that mental edge and homecourt advantage during the Western playoffs. But we also knew that if we couldn’t overtake the Cavs overall, we still wanted to stay ahead of Boston and Orlando, which we have—like I said, it’s about how you finish, not how you start.

TNT is promoting its coverage of the NBA playoffs with a slogan “40 games in 40 nights“—TNT analyst and two-time NBA champion Kenny Smith had this to say of Andrew Bynum coming back to the Lakers: “What he does is give them every component now to make a championship team. . . (The Lakers) don’t have a weakness that you can attack everyday.” Thing is, no one wins a championship in April. We’re probably going to be matched up against Utah or Dallas in the first round.

We had a bruising second round series with Utah last year. We won the first two and they won their two at home with guard Deron Williams leading them. We headed back to LA tied 2-2 but we won Game 5 and closed out the series in Utah with a big road win against a team with the best home record last year. The Laker guards are looking forward to battling again with “D-Will,” who won gold with Team USA at the Beijing Olympics. Even though we were 3-0 against the Mavs this year, they’re still dangerous with some savvy vets and they’re still led by 2007 NBA MVP Dirk Nowitzki.

BTW, man, my fellow Laker guard Sasha Vujacic threw down on two Kings recently. I thought I’d seen it all! This is why we play the game we love.

Enjoy the start to the playoffs, whoever your team is, and check back on my new dish next week.

— JFarm