As the autumn finally gets underway, the hearts and minds of Laker Nation stir toward the upcoming season. For the first half of the summer, we bit our nails as we watched Trevor Ariza essentially traded for Ron Artest, and then again as Lamar Odom squared off against Dr. Jerry Buss and Mitch Kupchak during contract negotiations. As soon as the contract was nailed, though, Laker Nation seemed to go into hibernation, other than Pau Gasol’s vindication as he led Team España to victory in the Euroleague.
With the regular season just around the corner, some questions loom. How will Artest mesh with a team whose roster is essentially unchanged (other than the Ariza-for-Artest trade, the only difference has been the Lakers passing on China-born guard Sun Yue)? Will Gasol have enough time to rest? Will the team still have the same hunger that pushed them all last season?
And, of course, there is this: who will be first off the bench for Derek Fisher in the point guard position? Fisher, who just turned 35, is out of his prime and declining, although as Luis Scola found out, Fish is still a force to contend with. Jameer Nelson, too, will remember how effective Fish can be in clutch situations. Still, as Fish coasts to the finish line of his career as an active NBA player, the Lakers need to groom someone to take over.
At the moment, the two Laker backup point guards are Jordan Farmar and Shannon Brown. Farmar, who joined the Lakers out of UCLA back in 2006, showed in his first year that he had an athleticism that made local Bruins very proud indeed. Few will forget his fleet-footed runs along the baseline to drop in layups before defenders could finish turning their heads to figure out where to block. Brown, who was acquired from the Charlotte Bobcats along with Adam Morrison in exchange for Vladimir Radmanovic in February, is a much more recent addition to the team. Nevertheless, in his short time with the team, he has generated a buzz similar to when Trevor Ariza first joined the Lakers.
So, between Jordan Farmar and Shannon Brown, who will get the nod to come off the bench first for the veteran Fisher? Let’s begin with 
the numbers. The 2008-09 season was not a particularly good one for Farmar, who, despite playing about the same number of minutes as his career average, saw many of his numbers worsen: his field goal, three-pointer, and free-throw percentages all dropped. His personal fouls have also increased slightly, possibly due to frustration. For his part, Brown saw his numbers improve, again playing a consistent number of minutes. His field goal, three-pointer, and free-throw percentages all improved. And, as if presenting the mirror image to Farmar, Brown’s personal fouls have decreased along with the improvement in his other numbers.
Putting the season numbers for the two young men side by side, a pattern seems to emerge: although many of their numbers for the season are similar, Brown seems to have an offensive edge over Farmar, other than assists, while Farmar is doing better on defensive rebounds. Part of this may be explained through size differences: Farmar, at 6’2”, 180 lbs., is 2 inches shorter and 31 lbs. heavier than Brown. To the degree this makes him a scrappier, more agile player, it may explain the difference in defensive rebounds. And, to be fair to Farmar, Brown plays fewer minutes, and is probably less scouted, and thus may be subject to less pressure than the Bruin.
But there is one thing that keeps nagging: fans have noticed that Farmar simply has not been that consistent this past season. In my gut, I definitely have this feeling that Farmar has become less consistent. The numbers certainly show major slips across the board. So how do we figure out his consistency? One way to measure consistency is not just to look for averages, but also to look for the standard deviation of a set of data. For example, a player who averages 2 rebounds a game over 3 games could have had exactly 2 rebounds in each of those 3 games (let’s call this player “A”), or 3 points in one game, 1 in another, and 2 in the third (let’s call this player “B”), or even 6 rebounds in one game, but none in the other two games (let’s call this player “C”). “A” has a standard deviation of 0, i.e., he rebound off the average. “C” has a standard deviation of almost 3.5.
Of course, different base averages will yield different standard deviations. If player “X” averages 2 rebounds a game, and player “Y” averages 3 rebounds a game, they have different base averages to work from. Since the standard deviation can never be lower than 0, obviously, if “X” had a standard deviation of 0, and “Y” had any other standard deviation, “X” is more consistent. But what if “X” had a standard deviation of 1, and “Y” also had the same standard deviation? If they both played three games, the standard deviation that is 
most probable for “X” is 3, 2, and 1 rebounds, and for “Y”, 4, 3, and 2 rebounds, in each of the three games. In this scenario, I calculate something I call a “consistency margin”: I take the standard deviation and divide it by the average, thus figuring out how large the standard deviation is in relation to the base average. The more consistent a person is, the smaller his consistency margin will be. Here, “X” has a consistency margin of 50%, while “Y” has a consistency margin of 33%. This makes sense. It is more impressive that “Y” is consistently only 1 rebound off a higher average rebound (3 per game), than it is for “X” to be consistently 1 rebound off a lower average of 2 rebounds per game.
What if two players have the same average, but have played a different number of games? Let’s say “M” averages 3 rebounds a game over 3 games, “N” averages 3 rebounds a game over four games, with games consisting of 4, 4, 3, and 1 rebounds, and “O” averages 3 rebounds a game over four games, with games consisting of 4, 3, 3, and 2 rebounds. In such a scenario, “M” has a standard deviation of 1, “N” has a standard deviation of over 1.41, and “O” has a standard deviation of less than 0.82. Because the number of data points (games) is built into the average and the standard deviation calculations, it is also built into the consistency margin. The respective consistency margins here would be 33% for “M”, 47% for “N”, and 27% for “O”.
So, where am I going with all this? I am going to compare the consistency margins between our two bench point guards. Taking data points for the entire playoffs, where Farmar played 20 games and Brown played 21, I’ve compared their consistency margins. Farmar has the lead in defensive rebounds (103% vs. 139%), steals (134% vs. 157%), blocks (244% vs. 316%), turnovers (113% vs. 143%) and assists (120% vs. 140%). Brown has the lead in offensive rebounds (155% vs. 220%), personal fouls (86% vs. 119%), points per game (83% vs. 96%), and points per minute (61% vs. 81%). Of course, these need to be placed in context. Farmar’s lead in turnover consistency is for a higher average number of turnovers (0.9 vs. 05), and Brown’s lead in personal foul consistency is for a higher average number of personal fouls (1.3 vs. 0.8). Nonetheless, from an offensive perspective, Brown’s consistency in point production is good, since he averaged 4.9 PPG and 0.373 PPM in the playoffs, vs. Farmar at 4.7 PPG and 0.359 PPM.
Speaking of point production, you will notice I have not yet addressed field goals, three-pointers, and free throws. That is because for those there is another twist. The numbers can be interpreted both through all games played, and through all games in which they are 
attempted. In Farmar’s case, the field goal numbers are the same in both views, because he attempted at least one field goal in all games played. Meanwhile, Brown did not attempt field goals in 3 of the 21 games he played. Based on the numbers from ESPN.com, we see: Farmar averaged 1.7 FGM on 4.35 FGA (39.1%), 0.60 3PM on 1.95 3PA (30.8%), and 0.7 FTM on 0.95 FTA (73.7%), in all games played; Brown averaged 1.7 FGM on 4.0 FGA (43.4%), 0.60 3PM on 1.2 3PA (48.0%), and 0.9FTM on 1.1 FTA (79.2%), in all games played. This comes out to standard deviations in completions of: 28.6% in FGs (73% consistency margin), 33.2% in 3PTs (107.8% consistency margin), and 37.1% in FTs (50.4% consistency margin) for Farmar; and 29.2% in FGs (67.3% consistency margin), 38.5% in 3PTs (80.3% consistency margin), and 43.1% in FTs (54.4% consistency margin) for Brown. Thus, through all games, in most measures of point production, although the average numbers seem pretty equal, with Brown having a lead in FTM per game, Brown is far more consistent, with a virtual tie, surprisingly, in free throw completion consistency (Farmar has a better margin at 50% vs. Brown’s 54%).
The real interesting data patterns emerge when you look at data points only from games when these young men have made attempts. As noted, that makes no difference for Farmar when it comes to field goals, but there are games where he did not attempt three-pointers or free throws. Brown, for his part, has been a place holder for much of the series against Orlando, so his numbers would be adjusted across the board.
Adjusting for the data to reflect, for each category, only the games where attempts were made, we come up with the following averages: 1.7 FGM on 4.35 FGA (39.1%), 0.67 3PM on 2.17 3PA (25.0%), and 2.33 FTM on 3.17 FTA (68.1%) for Farmar; and 1.89 FGM on 4.37 FGA (37.8%), 0.92 3PM on 1.92 3PA (43.6%), and 2.11FTM on 2.67 FTA (78.9%) for Brown. This represents drops across the board in 
completion rate because of the different base averages in attempts and completions. This comes out to standard deviations in completions of: 28.6% in FGs (73% consistency margin), 34.1% in 3PTs (136% consistency margin), and 36.7% in FTs (53.9% consistency margin) for Farmar; and 27.6% in FGs (72.9% consistency margin), 41.1% in 3PTs (94.4% consistency margin), and in 25.2% FTs (32.0% consistency margin) for Brown. With this adjustment, Brown’s field goal consistency approaches Farmar’s, but is technically better; both three-point consistencies decrease, but Farmar’s does so by a wider margin (an extra almost 30% as opposed to Brown’s extra 14%); and while Farmar’s free-throw consistency goes down a little (the margin increases by an extra 3%), Brown’s goes way up, the margin dropping from 54.4% to a tiny 32.0%. If you want to be consistent at anything, as we have seen throughout two consecutive Finals series, it’s in free throws. (Remember how the Celtics killed us in free throw shooting in Game 4, and how the Magic missed a chance to put themselves ahead in Game 2.)
This is not to say, of course, that there’s no place for Farmar. We’ve seen what he can do, and hopefully the old (or young, depending on how you look at it) Farmar will return. For now, however, his numbers are in decline, and his consistency in the playoffs lagged Brown. Until he can prove himself, Jordan Farmar should yield the first bench to Shannon Brown.
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