LA Daily News: As Jordan Farmar followed Junior Harrington toward the Memphis bench in the final minute of a summer-league game, the Lakers might have wondered what happened to the kid who showed up in a suit for his pre-draft interview.
There were 59.6 seconds left in the July 11 game, with the score tied at 83-83 and play stopped while a Grizzlies player was treated for a cut. Harrington went to talk to Memphis coach Mitchell Anderson as Farmar tailed him to the sideline.
For the length of the stoppage, Farmar stood next to Harrington, listening in with those big ears of his and showing that he was unafraid to stick his nose where it did not belong on the court.
"I was just playing around, trying to make him uncomfortable, and act like I knew what was going on," Farmar said. "I have no clue. Whatever they say, I don't know their calls anyway."
Little wonder that Lakers assistant coach Kurt Rambis praised Farmar, the former UCLA and Taft High of Woodland Hills standout, for being a "nasty competitor" after the last game of summer league play Wednesday.
"He goes over there and listens," Rambis said. "That's the smart, crafty little move that he did. I liked that. He has as much right to stand there as the opposing player."
It was the most telling moment in an excellent summer league for Farmar, the Lakers' first-round draft pick, who led the team in scoring - 16.1 points per game - and played beyond his years the past two weeks in Long Beach.
He grasped the triangle offense so quickly that Rambis remarked after the first game that Farmar must have been studying it the last two years at UCLA. But Rambis' most telling comment came when he was asked if he thought Farmar looked 19 on the court.
"I just think he grew up having nothing but dreams and aspirations of playing in the NBA, being a point guard his entire life," Rambis said. "He's got instincts and vision you just can't teach, somebody's had to grow up playing that way."
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