amid all this debate about who the starting PG should be and who the PG of the future should be, everybody is forgetting something: OUR BENCH IS BACK!!!

All we gotta do is get Kobe and Ron back to 100%, and keep everybody else fresh for the playoffs. We’ll have the legendary team we thought we would have.

But when Farmar and Brown are together in the backcourt I see speed and youth again. Let’s remeber the purpose of playing is to win, not run the Triangle. That doesn’t mean Jordan gets free reign. It doesn’t mean the Lakers should abandon the Triangle. It simply means sometimes you have to take what you can get. There have been plenty of times in the past when the Lakers temporarily went away from the Triangle to get a particular player going. Or Kobe did it just because he wanted to.

When we consider Fisher’s well documented shortcomings and Shannon’s limitations the Lakers will need strong input from Farmar if they think they are going to repeat. Let’s not get too zealous over the Triangle offense. The Lakers need diversity in their game. Sure, Jordan can get trigger happy. Still when he is on his game (when partnered with Brown) it gives the Lakers a dimension the starters lack. Take that away and the Lakers become a lot slower and a lot less athletic. Speed and athleticism came in very handy in last season’s title run.

Shannon is a small shooting guard not a point guard. I said this last season but many were saying he could be the lakers back up pg. NO. He needs to focus on how to become a better shooting guard. He can eat up a few minutes at the point against bigger guards like Chauncy Billupssince the lakers don’t require a pure pg.

Moving on to Fisher. He’s still the starter and should finish most games. But he’s not getting any better, and he’s been slightly better than terrible for most of this season. He’s had some decent games here and there. Everyone say’s Fisher strongest asset and advantage over Farmar is Fishers ability to run the offense and his experience. However, that’s where Fisher has struggled the most at doing. I don’t know if struggle is the right word, but he hasn’t been the reliable veteran presence he was two seasons ago. When the Lakers offense is struggling, Fisher is supposed to settle them down and make the right play. However, Fisher has been the one to fire up a terrible contested long range jumper or drive the ball into 2 or 3 defenders early in the shot clock when the lakers need to settle down. Fisher’s shot selection, particularly when Pau was hurt, has been detrimental to his shooting percentage. Fisher should shoot 40% from 3 because almost all of his shots should be wide open and within the offense. That hasn’t been the case for most of the season. Thats why fisher has so many 1-8, 1-10, 2-11 shooting games. Add that to the fact that opposing pg’s have routinely had field days vs. the Lakers, the Lakers have to start looking towards the future and have to figure out if they should try to resign Farmar. With that being said, Fisher has played better over the last week or so in limited minutes. Pau Gasol’s return also forces Fisher to run the offense a bit more as well. My point is Fisher hasn’t been the consistent and reliable veteran he’s been in the past and should be now. This goes back to last season, especially throughout the western conference playoffs. He can still turn it around and have a decent season. But i’ll bet my money on Farmar playing better as the season goes on rather than Fisher.

Kaveh, I don’t think that the issue is who is “better”, but who does the most to help us win, and from that perspective, it’s highly debatable whether either of them is “better” than Fish.

I am actually of the opinion that PJ and the coaching staff are more concerned with what is going on defensively from our PGs than offensively. I am explicitly not throwing out trade suggestions, but I think that we’d be better off with a Courtney Lee or Iguodala type guy who has the length, speed and tenacity to make us more of a trapping defensive team, ala the MJ-Pip Bulls.

SB can certainly grow into that role, or whatever his version of it might be, but I, like Darius, am disappointed that Farmar has failed to use his unique skills to better fit the team. I like him considerably as a player, and think that he can be quite good, but it’s pretty evident at this point that it’s just not for this team.

What I’m really getting at is that a few bad shots or bad decisions on the offensive end are perfectly acceptable if the PG, whoever that might be, is wreaking havoc on defense, which SB did last night, which is probably why he stayed on the floor.

If he can do that more consistently, and grow into making better decisions offensively, then I think we may have something here, but if he can’t, it might be high time to go (way) back to the idea of needing a BShaw/Ron Harper replacement for this team.