Around The World (Wide Web): Farmar, Defense, Kaman, Johnson

From Gabriel Lee, Lakers Nation: The grass is always greener on the other side, as they say. The biblical tale of the Prodigal Son exemplifies that euphemism. For those unfamiliar with the parable, here’s a quick synopsis: a young man asks his wealthy father for his share of the inheritance. He goes out to a distant country and exhausts whatever money he was given. With no money and remaining, he decides to return home to beg for his father’s forgiveness. To the son’s surprise, his father welcomes him home by celebrating with a feast. We’ve all been in that position of the son as humans. Our innate sense of self-belief leads us to rebel against our parents early as a teenager, eventually move out because we’re tired of our folks, and later seek a sense of fulfillment in the workplace through seeking new opportunities. Sometimes these risks paid off in spades, at others we’ve all fell flat on our face; but without taking these risks where would the fun lie in life? Luckily, nothing you ever do in this life is put to waste. You learn something from each experience and gain a sense of humility along the way. Enter Jordan Farmar. The point guard, who was born and raised in California, very recently completed a journey eerily similar to the son from the biblical parable.

From Actuarially Sound, Silver Screen & Roll: The advancements made in statistics and data analytics in the NBA has been revolutionary. The movement is beginning to leave the traditional box score as a mere relic of the past as terms such as “efficiencies” and “rates” have now become more commonplace. It is no secret that the progress made has been mainly tied to the offensive end, where the individual contribution can be more easily measured. This isn’t to say the defense hasn’t seen any progress; the movement to defensive efficiency is a vast improvement over the old-school metric of opponent’s points per game. However many of the defensive metrics are still quite lacking because it is no easy feat to disentangle the individual contribution to the team’s results. I recognize the immense challenge facing those who try to tackle the measurement of individual defense and thus won’t criticize the current lack of individual defensive metrics. What I do take issue with is our measurement of team defense because the way we are doing it now is quite flawed and the remedy is quite simple.

From Mike Bresnahan, LA Times: No matter how dreadful the upcoming season might be, Lakers fans don’t have to hold their breath. Chris Kaman will do it for you. He can stay submerged in water for 2½ minutes thanks to years of free diving in the ocean. No, Kaman isn’t your normal NBA center. Never has been. Never will be. Now he’s Lakers property for a year. It will be a fun ride this season, at least in front of Kaman’s locker before and after every game. Listen to him talk and you think a dark, low-level cloud will appear over his head and start a downpour. He sold his Manhattan Beach home over the summer and was unexpectedly contacted by the Lakers a week later. He signed with Dallas a year ago, eager to play for Mark Cuban and with Dirk Nowitzki, but ended up barely playing toward the end of the season. And a prowler broke into his house there while he and his wife were sleeping.”It still stresses me out to leave her at home,” he said.

From Dave McMenamin, ESPN LA: Los Angeles Lakers forward Wesley Johnson underwent an MRI on Monday that revealed he has a strained tendon in his left foot. Johnson was held out of practice Monday, and the Lakers are calling his status day to day. The Lakers play the Denver Nuggets on Tuesday in Ontario, Calif., in their third preseason game of the exhibition schedule. The fourth-year forward exited the Lakers’ 97-88 loss to the Nuggets on Sunday with 3:59 remaining in the first quarter after feeling a “burning sensation” in his foot, according to Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni. Johnson finished with only two points and three rebounds while shooting 1-for-5 from the field with two turnovers. It was Johnson’s second straight underwhelming performance of the preseason, at least statistically, after being considered a breakout player during training camp.