It’s not easy to take an 11-hour flight, but that’s what former NBA player and current Maccabi Tel Aviv point guard Jordan Farmar was getting ready for on Sunday afternoon as he slowly got dressed in the locker room inside Madison Square Garden. After a two-city tour in NBA arenas, Farmar and his teammates were about to head back to Israel, traveling even further away from his native Los Angeles.
Farmar, 28, was born in Los Angeles and went to high school in nearby Woodland Hills. He spent two years at UCLA before being drafted by the hometown Lakers, where he spent his first four NBA seasons. If anyone knows about what it’s like to grow up and mature in LA, it’s Farmar. So he seemed like the perfect person to ask when it came to giving advice to Lakers rookie D’Angelo Russell, a fellow guard who was the second overall pick in June’s draft.
“Just be ready for the bright lights, man,” Farmar told SheridanHoops. “There are going to be high expectations every game, so just play your game do what got you here.”
Russell’s very short track record so far indicates that those expectations need to be tempered. Los Angeles played two preseason games against Utah in exotic Honolulu, losing both. Russell scored five points on 2-of-8 shooting in 21 minutes on Sunday and left Wednesday’s game after just four minutes with a bruised glute muscle.
In Las Vegas, another exotic locale, Russell struggled with turnovers and pressing offensively during July’s summer league, as we documented.
Farmar also discussed Kobe Bryant and the Lakers’ chances this season before heading to JFK Airport in New York. Farmar said he had no idea whether this would really be Bryant’s last season in the NBA – or just his last with the Lakers.
“He’ll discuss it with his family, how he wants his legacy to turn out,” Farmar said. “I really don’t know what’s going on in his mind right now.”
While Farmar doesn’t know what will happen with Bryant, he seemed pretty sure about the Lakers. “The West is tough. That’s all I can really tell you,” he said. “There are a lot of really good teams.”
Farmar won two championships with the Lakers under Phil Jackson, who now runs the Knicks. In his second year as president, Jackson is tasked with rebuilding a team that won just 17 games a season ago. Farmar stressed, as many have, that the Knicks are going through a process.
“It’s tough to turn around what they’re trying to do around here with the triangle offense and the entire offensive philosophy,” Farmar said. “Guys have to buy into it, guys have to learn. If they give it a chance, I think it’ll work out.”
Both the Knicks and Lakers would be best served by tempering expectations for the upcoming season, but as Farmar can attest, patience and realism are generally in short supply in New York and Los Angeles.
Shlomo Sprung is a national columnist for SheridanHoops who focuses on analytics, profiles and features. He is also the web editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. A 2011 graduate of Columbia University’s Journalism School, he has previously worked for the New York Knicks, The Sporting News, Business Insider and other publications. You should follow him on Twitter.