Allow me to begin with an admission: I have met Jordan Farmar and he is one of the nicest, most personable professional athletes I’ve encountered. He’s got some automatic points with me because I’m Jewish, and he’s half-Jewish with a step-father who played professionally in Israel. I love his story because I’m also from LA and love basketball and the Lakers, and I’ve been happy with him in purple and gold from the start. All that being said, and with all the talent on the Lakers’ roster, the point guard spot seems to be the one glaring inconsistency. Don’t misconstrue – I love Derek Fisher and the “0.4″ moment will be burned into my memory forever because it happened on my father’s 50th birthday – but that’s not who I’m talking about. In an NBA that seems to be shifting emphasis to guard play from the grind-it-out post game, it’s more important that ever that the Lakers are able to go two or three players deep at the point, like we seem to be able to do in every other position on the roster. The Lakers have weathered the Andrew Bynum injury relatively well, but I doubt they’d be able to do the same should Fisher go down for a spell. In fact, D-Fish is playing such brutal minutes (30.7/game – 4 over his career average!) at the age of 35 because Phil Jackson clearly knows that Farmar is not ready to lead a team like the Lakers.

For a long time,  I felt like Farmar fit the bill, but this season has changed my mind. Increasingly, D-Fish is easily taken off the dribble by a faster, younger opposing guard. He compensates with his veteran wiles and superior positioning. Disturbingly, the same dribble-drive is allowed consistently when Jordan Farmar is in, but Farmar doesn’t have Fisher’s experience or consistency. There’s no doubt he is talented, and in my estimation he makes an excellent back-up point guard…but I haven’t seen anything in his game this year to make me think he can do more than that for the Lakers. The good decisions he does make with the ball are electrifying in many instances, but ultimately the mistakes and the inconsistent defense overshadow those highlights. Unfortunately, the first half of tonight’s game against the Bucks contained a few moments that illustrate this point all too well. Luke Ridnour is not significantly faster than Farmar if at all, and he’s not in the discussion of top point guards in the league, but at one point he just flew by Jordan with relative ease. It looked painfully similar to what has killed us the last two games, namely an opposing guard just getting into the lane with ease. From there, the options all suck: an And-1, an open 3, an And-1 on a 3 because the person running out isn’t paying attention. That can’t happen if we want to have a party downtown in June, especially considering Farmar’s extended offensive slump and supposed pride in leading the ‘bench mob’ on both ends. Honestly, is it too much to ask to see him sacrificing his body on every defensive possession and then just not turning the ball over so much on offense. I love the guy and I really, honestly, hope that he gets over the hump and transforms into the better version of himself that the Lakers need…because he hasn’t yet.