Jordan Farmar

High School:

Taft

College:

UCLA

Hometown:

Woodland Hills, CA

Current Position:

Expected Position:

Possible Positions:

Strengths:

A scoring guard with extreme confidence and a tireless work ethic, Jordan Farmar embodies much of the talent found in the Lakers’ second unit. As the first point guard off the bench, he acts a major sparkplug in igniting the Lakers’ up-tempo game.

Farmar is an interesting player in the sense that he has reinvented parts of his game in the NBA, contrasting with the player that he was in college. In college, Farmar was billed as a pass-first point guard and was compared to the likes of Luke Ridnour and Steve Nash by various draft outlets, and was projected to be a player who would struggle in the NBA due to his “perceived” lack of athleticism and lateral quickness. However, at least so far in the NBA, Farmar has proven those scouts’ perceptions of him wrong—he appears to be more of a player who looks for his shot first (at least in this offense), despite showing some real passing potential at times, as he is capable of making flashy passes particularly in transition game. Where Farmar seems to have surprised scouts the most is with his leaping ability—he was 1^st in vertical leap measurements out of the predraft camps, possessing a 42” inch vertical. Although he doesn’t achieve full vertical most of the time, his athleticism is clearly above average in the league, and he also has great top speed and overall quickness relative to other point guards. Overall, scouts have seriously underestimated Farmar’s physical attributes, and those exact tools have helped Farmar quite a bit in his early success in the NBA.

Farmar’s strengths start with his dynamic offensive ability and all-around scoring abilities. When playing at the top of his game, he is a fearless shooter who is capable of getting hot from three-point range, and although he underutilizes his crossover at times, he is capable of putting his defenders off balance with it, hitting his pull-up jumpshots at a solid rate. Farmar is a smart offensive player who makes use of momentum shifts well, often elevating his game and extending leads with his ability to gain a step on his defender and finish around the basket, and he also hits timely three point shots. As a matter of fact, he hit a number of clutch three point shots at or near the buzzer last year, showing his heady play and his extreme confidence/willingness in taking responsibility. In the past, Farmar showed an extreme tendency to rely on his three point shot as the major staple of his offense, and as a result rarely ever got to the line (considering his athleticism and his ability to gain a burst of speed); however, this year, he is clearly deferring away from the three and showing a greater tendency to attack the basket, which has yielded more free throw attempts as a result (so far this year, he has went to the line 8 times twice this year, which is now a career high). It is great to see Farmar’s willingness to improve and defer to other strengths in his game, as his greater diversification of his offensive ability definitely makes him harder to guard. Farmar has the ability to finish through contact, fearlessly attacking bigger players (he shot 55% from two pointers last year) and his mid-range game, which was questionable even last year, seems to have improved this year, particularly with the aforementioned pull-up midrange jumpers. Although he can get caught up on one-on-one play particularly if his man is scoring over him, Farmar can be willing to make his man work as well, as he wants to score on the next possession down if he is scored upon—this yet again is another example of his toughness and resiliency.

Farmar’s ability to play at a fast pace serves as a great complement to the Lakers’ (relatively) slower starting lineup. As noted, Farmar’s ability to attack the basket is a strength, and considering that he was one of the best finishers (for point guards) around the basket last year, it is nice to see him deferring to that aspect of his game. Farmar is extremely dangerous in transition, and he is excellent at leaking out in transition to get easy buckets, using fellow teammates as decoys well and making use of his excellent top speed to get layups and even dunks at a solid rate. When Farmar is on a roll, his play and confidence elevates and becomes infectious, and his teammates around him normally also play well.

Farmar’s athleticism is also a key element of his game, and as noted, was somehow considered a weakness in college (although he was affected by an ankle injury in UCLA which may have reduced his athleticism to a degree). When he is "on", his quickness is a nightly fixture in every game he plays, whether through his interception of bad passes, through his ability to gain top speed via transition game, through his finishing ability whether in halfcourt or in transition game, or through his first step to gain an edge on his man. In half-court sets, his athleticism is primarily prevalent without the ball in his hands, such as in snagging long rebounds off missed shots (he is one of the better rebounders for the point guard position); however, he is extremely capable of blowing by players and, through his top speed and momentum, dunking around taller players such as Tim Duncan and Chris Bosh. Farmar has a great initial burst and can really surprise players with his athleticism—he maximizes his athleticism and is capable of using his speed/vertical combination to put unaware defenses on its heels.

Defensively, Farmar plays the passing lanes quite well; he has quick hands and a good knack for anticipating passes, getting a hand on the ball and often leading to a fastbreak the other way, which he is more than likely to finish (or pass to another player who will finish) due to his smart use of decoys and his overall quickness. He currently ranks in the top 20 in steals per 48 minutes, helping the Lakers be the top stealing team in the league as of now. In terms of man-to-man defense, Farmar has the lateral quickness to stay with his man when he is motivated, and his leaping ability does allow him to contest shots. Although at this stage, Farmar is better on his off-the-ball defense rather than his on-the-ball D, he has potential here, due to his quickness, ability to get into a crouching fundamental stance and his overall athleticism. Coming from a school known for its defense, with its coach Ben Howland, doesn’t hurt either.

Farmar’s ballhandling skills, as was billed during the draft, are very good. He keeps his dribble low and controlled, almost as if he dribbles the ball on a string, and his ability to transition between dribbling and attacking or dribbling and pulling up are so fluid to the point that you almost forget about how good his ballhandling truly is. His natural ballhandling combined with his initial burst and overall quickness allow him to get to the basket at relative ease when his mind is set upon it, and really puts a burden on opposing defenders. Farmar doesn’t seem to get carried away with those natural ballhandling skills as well, unlike other young players his age; he plays an up-tempo, but for the most part, relatively controlled game, not getting too many turnovers at all. In terms of passing ability, Farmar is naturally unselfish and is willing passer within the Lakers’ Triangle offense in their half court sets; although Farmar seems to be a natural (and even creative) passer (he had 13 assists in a free-for-all up-tempo system during the Rookie-Sophomore game at All-Star Weekend) who almost seems repressed in the assisting department due to the evening-out-of-the-assists that the Triangle promotes, he is willing to sacrifice that part of the game for the betterment of the team. There were times in the past where it seemed clear that Farmar needed to excel in an environment where he was the ball-dominant figure, but he has adjusted well to his situation as sparkplug off the bench, and knows how to read situations and respond accordingly, rather than overzealously forcing things as he was prone to do at UCLA. He is still more than capable of making fancy passes, which sometimes leads to turnovers at times, but more than likely in the halfcourt will just make the simple pass (bounce pass, perimeter passing, post entries, etc) while running the offense. Farmar is also special in the sense that he can pass out lobs to others while at the same time receive lobs at times—Luke Walton lobbed a pass to him this year, which he jammed home.

It should be noted that Farmar is extremely durable. He played all of the 82 games last year, and shows no sign of any of the ankle injuries he incurred while in college. He doesn’t seem to tire that much, as while he does conserve the intensity of his play at times, he is capable of stepping up when the situation calls for it. He rarely picks up fouls as well.

In terms of intangibles, it’s hard to ask for a better player. Farmar has a tireless work ethic, and in the past, was even willing to play in the Lakers’ D-League to improve his game (some might view that as a “demotion” of sorts) and has been documented as a player who was willing to invest countless hours honing his jumpshot (back when it was considered a weakness for him). He is a self-made player with loads of confidence and has improved every year, making his biggest jump in production in his sophomore year last season. As noted, he has diversified his offensive attack by slashing more this year, showing a willingness to improve his game, as he always has shown; in addition, he seems to have maximized his athleticism ever since last year and has a very good personality which makes him likeable around the locker room and on the court. There have been times last year where he may not have passed the ball to Kobe, but he wanted to get everyone touches and not rely on a more predictable Kobe-centric attack. Off the court, Farmar is an honors student and gives back to the community, working UCLA basketball programs over the offseason and even going back to his native Israel to help with the situation there.

Farmar is only 21 years old (will soon be 22) and has already proved himself quite a bit at the highest levels of the NBA, having reached the NBA Finals with the rest of the Lakers and contributing solidly throughout the playoffs. He clearly has a bright future ahead of him, and is set to be the heir apparent and take the starting job from Derek Fisher as early as next year, and is already getting quite a lot of minutes off the bench this year already.

Weaknesses:

Offensively, Farmar has consistency issues offensively; his impact can be minimalized in several ways, whether by matching up against bigger guards or if the flow of the game isn't to his favor. Notice many of Farmar's strengths are prefaced with "At the top of his game" or "when he is on". It's not a stretch to say that he is a tendency to disappear, but he can go whole games making minimal impact and thus render himself invisible when presented with these situations. Despite Farmar's overall good numbers last year (9.1 ppg in 20 minutes) are somewhat misleading--Farmar had a scintillating start to last season, but really started to disappear at the end of last year, with his overal numbers tailing off. His offensive consistency issues are obviously not as bad as another former Laker, Smush Parker, who was also high maintenance in addition to those problems, but once again this problem seems to be presenting itself once again, as Farmar seems to have a tendency to get into long extended funks.

Farmar's inability to make an impact at times may be due in part to the kind of talent talent that surrounds him, but there are several noticeable factors. Farmar's jumpshot has a tendency to be quite streaky, and really depends on the flow of the game, whether his confidence is there and on his own personal matchups. Normally one or two of these problems is enough to knock him off of his offensive game. As noted, Farmar seems to settle a bit too much; in situations where the opposition takes away the Lakers' run and gun game, Farmar doesn't always make his usual great impact off the bench, and his preferred up-tempo style of play suffers. When this happens, Farmar has a tendency to ward away from his slashing game and shoot jumpers, resulting in lower percentage shots and thus make less impact. Against good defenders, Farmar has a tendency to get cold offensively, and really can be prone to off nights. It almost seems ironic to label Farmar a confident player who can be rendered invisible--but despite all his confidence and work ethic, these problems linger. Again, many skeptics will note that Farmar's key role in the offense is mostly as igniter and spot-up shooter, but when the going gets tough Farmar, despite all his savvy and athleticism, just seems to lack of the intricate ballhandling moves (that another former Laker had, Javaris Crittenton) and that can help him lose his man easier and help ignite the rest of his game. He may possess an all-around offensive game, but he just doesn’t use much offensive creativity, not being the type of player who will cross players up or take too many shots off the dribble—he uses speed, burst/first step and body control to get off shots as opposed to such creativity.

There are other concerns offensively, namely mid-range game and free throw shooting. He has made gains with his mid-range game, but he can still stand to use it more. Despite improving his free throw numbers this year, Farmar shoots a paltry 65% from the line at this point in the season, and that doesn’t seem to be a fluke considering that he only shot 67% from the line last year, which is poor for any point guard in the league; Farmar has solid shot mechanics, but his consistency (perhaps due to an average arch on his shot) seems to be lacking; it looks improvable, however.

Although this was more of a problem in college, where his teammates would just rely on him to make something happen out of nothing, Farmar does receive quite a bit of responsibility against the shotclock, and at times this leads to turnovers, missed shots and other miscues. While Farmar’s ballhandling skills allow him to maintain control of the ball in close quarters and in other situations, Farmar does pick unforced errors here and there, due to overzealousness—he is prone to forcing passes at times and doing too much with the ball in his hands. He was a good floor general in college, but suffered from turnovers in college; to be fair this doesn’t happen too much in the court, but at times he can get carried away and utilize fancy passes that may lead to turnovers.

In terms of passing the ball, it seems the area that Farmar lacks in are his playmaking skills within the Triangle. As noted in the “Strengths” section, the Triangle seems to repress any of Farmar’s natural flair for the dramatic in his passing talents, and despite showing some court vision at times, he has shown little ability to create particularly in drive-and-kick situations, or using his ballhandling skills to draw defenders and find the open man—when he drives, it is normally to attack the basket. Farmar seems to have court vision, but instead of making everyone better around him, he instead creates the environment through which his fellow up-tempo players (Lamar Odom, Trevor Ariza, Sasha Vujacic to a slight extent) can also excel in. Of course, with the balancing out of assists via the Triangle and the plethora of great passers found on the Lakers’ team, the blame shouldn’t go to Farmar that much at all; his strategy of scoring along the flow and acting as a sparkplug has worked and probably will continue to work throughout the season. However, it should be noted that in an environment where he would have a more prominent role, his assists would probably be greater, because his assists last year and throughout the early part of this year are not too impressive for a point guard.

Farmar’s overall on-the-ball defense is quite poor; so far this season, the Lakers’ defense has been excellent as a team, but their trouble spots are found through their PGs; while Farmar is not as bad a defender as the person who starts over him, Derek Fisher, in this metric, he does give up an above average PER for the backup point guards that he usually faces. He has a tendency to go under screens as opposed to in front of them, leading to many open shots, and although he has good speed, he hasn't moved his feet well enough to stay in front of many guards leading to many dribble penetration opportunities--this is a real concern. This has been particularly see in a Sacramento game early this season, when Sacramento’s backup rookie PG, Bobby Brown, torched Farmar with his speed and scored 20+ points off the bench; in addition, he was unable to put out early-season offensive outputs by Houston’s backup Aaron Brooks, Sac's Bobby Jackson, Dallas's Jose Juan Barea, and starters such as Jason Kidd, Allen Iverson, Derrick Rose, and Chris Paul also impressed against the Lakers as well . This can be in some way attributed to motivation, because Farmar at times does struggle against point guards of his similar size and stature, but like his counterpart Fisher he doesn’t fight screens particularly well either. However, the fact that opposing point guards tend to show up the most against the Lakers is noticeable, and part of the blame here definitely has to fall on Farmar.

On defense, however, where Farmar struggles the most is against bigger, stronger point guards; while Farmar improved drastically last year, during the Utah series in the playoffs he absolutely disappeared both offensively and defensively when faced with a taller, tougher point guard in Deron Williams. Despite all his quickness and leaping ability, which he doesn’t utilize well enough against quicker point guards already, he suffers even more against these bigger players, and struggles making shots over players that can interfere with his line of vision; defensively, his smallish frame (6’2”, 180 lbs) relatively to these players makes him an easy post up target, and he simply doesn’t fare well in these situations.

Farmar’s defense and overall scoring mentality for a point guard is part of the reason why people still have some reservations on whether he is really a scoring sparkplug sixth man type, or a legitimate starter in the near future. He doesn’t possess the same flair for the dramatic that superstar point guards have (i.e. Chris Paul, Derrick Rose, Deron Williams, etc), but he doesn’t appear to be an elite level playmaker or passer, even if he plays in a more free system. And even if he does develop those playmaking skills, his offensive disappearances due to the variety of factors delineated above are troubling as well, and when that happens he is usually a liability because his lack of defense will oftentimes not make up for it--he's either there, or he's invisible. As noted, just like another fellow small point guard in Chris Paul, he needs to find a way to make an impact both off offensively and defensively against stronger matchups. However, considering the number of point guards with perhaps more deficiencies that litter teams’ starting lineups (i.e. Delonte West, Rafer Alston, etc), along with other variables in Farmar’s favor such as his leadership, confidence, heady play and improvements over the past couple of years, he stands a chance to quell those doubts.