The Official Site of Jordan Farmar

Fri, Jan 2nd 2009, 13:22

Jordan's Playboy.com blog: Five on 5 Week 7

Hope you had a great holiday. We finished the year on a high note. We’re the number one seed in the West, we snapped Boston’s 19-game winning streak in a great Christmas Day battle at Staples — helping Phil Jackson become the fastest coach to reach 1,000 wins — and we continue to evolve as a team. The guys played some great basketball against the champion Celtics. It was a good measuring stick, as some teammates said, showing how far we’ve progressed against a high-caliber team like Boston. We were experiencing some tough times in December but the guys stepped up against Boston.

I’m staying positive about my recent knee injury and the surgery on Christmas Eve went well. I’ve already started rehab. Once I get some range of motion, I’ll be able to get in the pool and on the treadmill. It’s sometimes good to watch the game from the sidelines. I’m going to work hard toward coming back healthy with a vengeance to make up for lost time, which will be about six to eight weeks in all. Sometimes, you can get caught up in the day-to-day grind. But when the game is taken away from you, you appreciate it much more, and get back to the basics, just playing and not worrying about much.

There are lessons in everything including adversity. Just when you hear the word “surgery,” you worry some. I’ve never had it before. But it’s part of the game. I told my family that I’d be fine even if it was something much worse like getting my leg cut off and the game was to end for me. There’s nothing I would rather do and I love basketball but I feel I have so much else going on for me, and no matter what happens, life goes on. I’ve been blessed in a lot of areas where I could diversify into other walks of life beyond basketball. I’m maturing and growing and coming to realize that, which makes it easier to accept and deal with situations like this, instead of driving yourself crazy.

I’m trying to stay mentally strong, while I’m watching my guys out there playing and having a good time. It’s great to see the way they’ve picked it up and are going into the New Year on a high. It’s a matter of putting it all together for the team. As for me, I’m playing a lot of videogames right now, watching lots of ball, being visited by friends and family, and my teammates are always checking in with me. I’ll keep you posted on my rehab and how it’s going. Thanks for your well wishes.

One team I’ve been watching is my former college team, UCLA, who also continue to grow and pick it up. They’ve got a solid group of veterans and youth. Guard Darren Collison was one of Playboy’s All-America picks. We actually played against each other in high school and then together for a year at UCLA. He’s a good player who’s gotten better. Now as a senior, he has that experience and leadership. He’s been to the Final Four three years in a row, I think, and to the national championship game. We went to the championship game my sophomore year, Darren’s freshman year. So he has the experience of those big games and knows what to expect. It’s important to have that on the team.

My guy to watch out for on this year’s UCLA team is Josh Shipp, a shooting guard now and another senior. He was my roommate in college. He was probably the best of all of us coming out of high school but had to go through two hip surgeries, and people maybe wrote him off. Now he’s healthy, back playing at his best.

Playing in the national championship game is pretty unique, as you can imagine. Just playing in the NCAA Tournament is special — it’s very pure because nobody gets paid to play. It’s for the love and passion you have for the game, and you’re representing yourself, your university and your family.

I’ve played in both the NCAA tourney and the NBA Finals, so I understand that the mentality of the NCAA tournament is completely different than the NBA playoffs. A bad shooting night for a key college guy can’t be overcome. In an NBA series, you can overcome a bad shooting night by making it up the next game. Plus, you’ve got better players, so your team can make up for your individual mistakes or a bad night. You have a seven-game series to work out all the kinks, and that’s a big difference. In college, you can be one and done, and it’s not always the best team that wins the game or the tournament. It’s who plays the best on any individual night. So you have to make sure you bring your A-game and come to play. And there’s also a big element of luck. You don’t get a second shot.

Last week, I spoke about what I appreciate in women. So what do I like to do on a date? It depends on who it is and what the situation is. First of all, I am a home body and I like to pretty much stay out of the crowd and spotlight. I’m in front of a lot of people on a nightly basis playing in the NBA, so I’m always on TV, I do a number of things with the media, and consequently my face is out there a lot. When I’m on my personal time, I like to be, well, personal. Go out to dinner somewhere that’s real low-key. Maybe go somewhere down where I live, near the water. I’ve grown up in LA, so my whole life has been part of the scenes on Sunset and in Hollywood for awhile. I’m over it now. If I was going to do something romantic, I’d go for a walk by the beach, something cool like that.

We’ve got Barack Obama coming into the White House in just a few weeks. It’s the first time anybody in the country has seen anything like this. We’re all excited and looking forward to see what’s going to happen and what he expects of us.

Check back next week for my latest dish. Happy New Year!

— JFarm