With Bynum out the Lakers should really start Farmar

[Mindflayer]

As a matter of fact I am starting to think the Lakers should trade Critt and keep Farmar when I have always favored Critt.

I think we are all learning that Bynum is almost as valuable as Kobe being he is a big man and an allstar caliber player.

Farmer is better than Crit and I'm glad you see this. If Crit starts hitting outside jumpers next year like Farmer this year then Crit may be better in the ling run. I don't think so because Farmer is a leader and has "it" and Crit is the Odom of PG's. You can quote me on that. As someone who wanted Blake over Fisher this off season I have to admit that Fish has been great for us. I'm not sure I want to remove Farmer from the second team but Fisher will be fine there. If this happens Sasha has to be the other guard because will want one tall guard in the lineup. Crit's minutes suffers which is fine since he should only play in blow-outs this year.

Bynum is almost as valuable as Kobe now and even Kobe sees this. I.e. "We are a championship caliber team with Bynum." I don't mind sliding up Ariza or Walton to PF and Odom or Turiaf to Center. Longer against teams like the Suns pr GSW and less versus teams like the Spurs or Celtics.

[MikeyMike]

I want Farmar to come off the bench, but close out games in the 4th quarter.


I also would like Walton to come off the bench and Ariza start in his place.

[Dexmor]

Star you got me with this one. WHat does Bynum have to do with Farmar? I don't understand.

I think you meant with Bynum out let's start Ronny, right?

I didn't say start him at center. Your the only one who didn't get it. They lost there second best scorer therefor they should play Farmar more who would take over as second best scorer. Odom is to inconsistant and even if Odom stepped up Farmar would be our third best scorer. Ya Dig?

[Erik Eleven]

The scoring punch Farmar would provide as a starter would take pressure off Kwame as a scorer, and help us stay with opponents early in games. It would ease the blow of Bynum being out, a little bit.

The question is, is that a solely good thing? Short term, yes. Long term, no. Kwame needs to get going now in order for this team to be competitive in three-four weeks from now. Be it that we lose five of the next seven games, we need Kwame to get going. He needs to get lots of touches, unfortunately.

I don't see this suggestion as a fix-all solution, but as Kwame keeps recovering from his injury and gets his hops back, I wouldn't mind seeing Farmar starting for a while.

The thing is, we might as well just ask Fisher to be more aggressive offensively. Fisher is shooting the ball extremely well, and when it comes to running the offense and playing defense, Fisher is still better than Farmar. Farmar makes mental mistakes, Fish doesn't.

[Dexmor]

Kwame will not play good and we can not count on him. If we do we are screwed. Phil Jackson still goes into Kwame like he is Bynum. It doesn't look like they changed there game plan it seems like Phil thinks you can just replace Kwame with Bynum and do the same thing. He is wrong.
Our Phil is wrong to. Starting Farmar would not be panicking it would be the right move because he could be close to a 20 point a game scorer and that is what we lost when we lost Bynum for 6 weeks.
You said Fisher is better then Farmar because Farmar still makes mental mistakes and Fisher doesn't well I don't think that is true at all I think Farmar is very mentally strong and plays like a 10 year vet. He only averages .3 turnovers more then Fisher. Now even if that were true you still play the better player for example guys like Raymond Felton and Gilbert Arenas probably make alot more mistakes then Sam Cassell and Gary Payton but you don't play those 2 over Felton and Gil because of it.
Also I didn't say he should start over Fisher (it's not a bad idea either way) but they could start together, there are alot of small but effect backcourts with 2 pg size players like the Warriors,Bulls and the Jazz at times when they started Fisher with Williams last year.

If Phil Jackson started Farmar the Lakers would have without question the best backcourt in the league bar none. Steven A and Bill were talking and they did a list of best backcourts and the Lakers were 4th, now I think the Lakers are 1st now but if Farmar started they would be without a doubt first.

Here is a list if Farmar started of best pg's in order and this is why I think they need to play him and make him and not Luke the guy Phil talks to about stepping up and being the Pippen, Anyway this is a list of best pg's in order

1.Chris Paul
2.Jason Kidd
3.Steve Nash
4.Allen Iverson
5.Baron Davis
6.Deron Williams
7.Gilbert Arenas
8.Chauncey Billups
9.Tony Parker
10.Mike Bibby
11.Andre Miller
12.JORDAN FARMAR
13.Raymond Felton
14.Mo Williams
15.Devin Harris
16.T.J. Ford
17.Kirk Hinrick
18.Jose Calderon
19.Jason Terry
20.DEREK FISHER

Now some of you will have different opinions on the list because pg's are the hardest players to rate because some people look at making players better as #1 and some people think the best player overall is most important and those people would probably take Iverson first but the point of the list is Jordan Farmar is close to a top 10 pg in the league. I think if he played 37 minutes a game (keep in mind this list is if everybody is healthy and if they all played fulltime) with Farmar improving at such a fast rate he can surpass Bibby and Miller but the fact that he is a top 12 pg means he is close to a star and he could really step up and be Kobe's Pippen in the sence that he is the second go to guy and the Lakers desperately need that with Bynum gone for 2 months.
Kwame Brown is complete garbadge and they need a new plan of attack and can not go to him in the post. They need to go to Kobe first Odom second in the post or taking it to the hoop and third option needs to be Jordan Farmar for them 2 win. Those are the 3 guys who can create shots for themselves and for others so those guys have to be your money players. You can't play him off the bench just to have a potent bench when your starting 5 is so very thin.

[Dexmor]

This is why I call Phil Jackson overrated. It shouldn't even be a question of does Farmar start it should be a question does Kobe play at the 3 with Farmar and Fisher in the backcourt or does Phil play Ariza at the 3 with Kobe and Farmar in the backcourt.
The fact that Farmar is not starting now makes me really doubt Phil Jackson and it makes me wonder if the few of you that think I am wrong judge on your own opinions or do you just see what Phil does and agree with that.

Phil Jackson uses Kwame Brown like he is good he talked about going back to bringing Bynum off the bench in Jan he said it and Jeff Van Gundy thought Phil was just playing with the media's head because it is so stupid and Bynum is clearly the better player over Kwame by about 100x over and he uses Luke Walton completely wrong to. Luke should be a bench player and Ariza should be playing more then him espially now. The Lakers have no shotblocking anymore with Kwame so nobody protecting the rim (and some of you think Kwame's an awesome defender) so they need a defensive stopper like Ariza but not only for that but has Phil ever heard of having your best offensive player not guard the best player on the other team? Espially if you have Ariza who can do it so Kobe can save his energy more for D and the playoffs.
Phil Jackson imo with the way he has handled the player rotations has made me think he was the best coach ever to thinking he is the best coach when it comes to motivation and handling players off the court but overall with his mental block of not having a clue of who to play I think he is just an above average coach who happened to have coached 2 of the best teams in the history of the league which is why he won championships. I think Poppa and Don Nelson and Byron Scott and all the Van Gundy's and maybe even Pat Riley are all better coaches then him.
I know this year they have been the best since Shaq was here and good but this is the year I am officially not a Phil Jackson fan. I throw out his book (which I read) and I know you guys are gonna hate me even more for saying stuff about Golden boy Phil but that's just what I think.

[Dexmor]

The scoring punch Farmar would provide as a starter would take pressure off Kwame as a scorer, and help us stay with opponents early in games. It would ease the blow of Bynum being out, a little bit.

The question is, is that a solely good thing? Short term, yes. Long term, no. Kwame needs to get going now in order for this team to be competitive in three-four weeks from now. Be it that we lose five of the next seven games, we need Kwame to get going. He needs to get lots of touches, unfortunately.

I don't see this suggestion as a fix-all solution, but as Kwame keeps recovering from his injury and gets his hops back, I wouldn't mind seeing Farmar starting for a while.

The thing is, we might as well just ask Fisher to be more aggressive offensively. Fisher is shooting the ball extremely well, and when it comes to running the offense and playing defense, Fisher is still better than Farmar. Farmar makes mental mistakes, Fish doesn't.

It's not a fix all solution because Bynum is a top 3 center in the league and the C position is the most important but we can't ask Fisher to really shoot that much more because he can't really create his own shot and kind of feeds off the stars and shoots the ball when he gets the chance. Farmar can create his own shot and can get to the rim at will.

Also we would be a much better defensive team if we went with a lineup of

Ronny-Gives us shotblocking with Kwame doesn't.
Odom
Ariza
Kobe
Farmar

With our bigman gone (Kwame is only a good pick and role defender and he is not a defender who can protect the rim) we need to lock down the peremtier and those 3 guys can.

[Dexmor]

Just in case my post was to long were you didn't read my list I will post it again, this is a list of best pg's in order if they all got fulltime and were healthy and I counted Lou Williams as a 2 so he is not on there and Conly I haven't seen play in the nba yet so I didn't put him on.
This is why Farmar needs to start, well just one more reason.
And if Farmar gives us points off the bench which is what you guys are so worried about losing don't you think Fisher or Luke which ever would be benched by Farmar starting would give us points off the bench?

1.Chris Paul
2.Jason Kidd
3.Steve Nash
4.Allen Iverson
5.Baron Davis
6.Deron Williams
7.Gilbert Arenas
8.Chauncey Billups
9.Tony Parker
10.Mike Bibby
11.Andre Miller
12.JORDAN FARMAR
13.Raymond Felton
14.Mo Williams
15.Devin Harris
16.T.J. Ford
17.Kirk Hinrick
18.Jose Calderon
19.Jason Terry
20.DEREK FISHER

[joe.linnen]

SF:Bryant
PF:Odom
C:Turiaf
SG:Crittenton
PG:Farmar


second unit

SF:Walton
PF:Ariza
C:Brown
SG:Vujacic
PG:Fisher

[Erik Eleven]

I don't have that big a problem with your suggestion, Kalel. I'd say it's worth trying to cover in the absence of Bynum's offensive production.

What I do have a problem with is that there is an underlying tone in your posts suggesting that Phil Jackson is close to (Please Use More Appropriate Word). I'm not saying he's immune to criticism, but to suggest that he hasn't pondered the idea of starting Farmar is ignorant at best. Of course he pondered every starters combination possible a thousand times already. He does what he does for a reason, and nothing we post here will make him see "the new light". Not even if he read it.

Having said that, I wouldn't be shocked to see Farmar starting at some point soon for the reasons you mention, but until that happens, I'm going to trust that there is a good, empirically grounded reason for it.

As far as I can tell, Fish makes very few mistakes on both ends. His lowest level is very high. Farmar makes few mistakes himself, but not as few as Fisher. Every now and then, the kid in him comes out and he gets in over his head. Phil works with them every day and has quite a bit of experience when it comes to basketball. I'll trust that if Farmar is not starting yet, there is a reason.

I wouldn't be shocked though if Farmar starts towards the end of this season. Now might be a good time to try it.

Good thread, Kalel.