A Test at the Pyramid

Wednesday evening I headed over to the Pyramid at Cal State, Long Beach for the second time this summer to take another look at what the Lakers summer league team had to offer. The Laker team would be facing the Memphis Grizzlies team which included Hakim Warrick (Memphis’ first round draft pick last year), Rudy Gay (the eighth overall pick this year), and Kyle Lowery (the 24th pick).

The game began with a big disappointment when I saw that Andrew Bynum, the “future of the franchise,” was not in the starting lineup. I looked over to the team bench and saw that Bynum was dressed in street clothes. Later on I would find out that he had suffered a knee bone bruise. It’s not a significant injury and he should be healthy in two weeks.

That was little consolation to me given that I made the trek to Long Beach mostly to see how much progress Andrew had made at the close of his second summer league. I had watched him in his second game and was encouraged by his progress. I had also seen the box scores from his other games and was looking forward to seeing him play again. Unfortunately I’ll have to wait until October when he should get playing time in the Laker pre-season games.

Fortunately there was still Jordan Farmar, the Lakers’ first round pick, who had also impressed me a couple of weeks ago. His other box scores had also looked good. I thought this game, without Bynum, would be a good test for Farmar since he was joined in the starting lineup by Von Wafer, Devin Green, Marcus Douthit, and Ed Fobbs. Needless to say, I thought it would be tough for Farmar to get any assists.

Sure enough, the Laker team played very disorganized to begin the game and the Grizzlies team got off to a quick lead. But the team rallied back and was down by only five points at the end of the first half.

Since Farmar could not rely on his teammates to do any scoring (he ended the game with only three assists), he put the responsibility for getting points on the scoreboard on himself. He made a couple of three pointers and drove to the basket, getting a couple of lay ups and some free throw opportunities. He also got his shot blocked a couple of times but it didn’t stop him from continuing to be aggressive.

That was one of the finest single half scoring performances I’ve ever witnessed at the summer league in the five years that I’ve attended. While I was pleased with Farmar’s offensive game, his defensive effort was disappointing. He was guarding Kyle Lowery who Memphis had selected two picks before Farmar was taken by the Lakers with the 26th pick.

Although Farmar had no trouble scoring against Lowery, he had some difficulty staying in front of him on defense. It seemed that Lowery could get past Farmar at will. Defense at the point guard position has been a problem for the Lakers the last few years. I was hoping Farmar would be better since he had a reputation for good defense in college. However, it looks like he’s going to have to continue to work on it.

The Grizzlies came out of the halftime break with a vengeance and got the lead up to 21 points in the middle of the third quarter. The Lakers rallied again but could only whittle the lead down to ten at the end of the quarter. Farmar tallied another seven points.

The fourth quarter began with Farmar on the bench and I feared he would remain there if the Grizzlies got the lead to 20 points again. However, the Lakers managed to stay within ten points of the Grizzlies until he got back into the game halfway into the quarter.

The stage was set. If Farmar could come in and lead the Lakers to a come from behind victory, visions of future NBA championships would dance in my head until the start of the regular season. If the Lakers lost, those visions would be replaced with images of the Lakers routinely making the playoffs only to face first round elimination for the next few years.

I’ll give Farmar credit for trying but his effort came up short. He took a couple of shots after getting back into the game but missed on both of them and went scoreless for the rest of the game. He also had a couple of passes that were not converted.

Nevertheless, the Lakers managed to stay in the game with some big plays by Devin Green, including a three-pointer and a drive to the basket. Green’s play this summer merits an invitation to the Lakers training camp, but it seems that with the acquisition of Maurice Evans, Green’s days with the Lakers will come to an end at training camp. Despite Green’s heroics, the Lakers lost the game 111-108.

So Wednesday’s game did turn out to be a good test for Farmar. He started off with the right answers but the Laker loss and his struggles in the fourth quarter changed my grade for him from an A to a B. Which isn’t bad, but it makes me wonder if it’ll be enough to get the Lakers to the next level. I guess we can only wait and see how he does on his next exam.