“I’m excited,” Steve Nash said at Tuesday morning’s Los Angeles Lakers shootaround.
With Kent Bazemore and Xavier Henry ruled out for the season, the Lakers will get a slight lift with the returns of Jordan Farmar and Nash on Tuesday night against the Houston Rockets.
For Nash, Tuesday night’s game could be an historic occasion. The Canadian is only four assists back of Mark Jackson on the all-time assists list, and most expect the 40-year-old to sit alone at no. 3 of the all-time assists list by the end of the night.
“I think Mike (D’Antoni) really wants me to get this assists thing out of the way. Now, I’d really like to get it out of the way too, frankly,” Nash said on Tuesday morning. “It’d be nice not to have to talk about it.”
With Nash and Farmar returning at the same time, it is a little unclear as to how the second unit will line up. Thus far, the idea is that both Farmar and Nash will play in tandem, so the Lakers will likely go small in the back court. How that ends up looking remains to be seen.
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Farmar missed the Lakers’ previous 11 games due to a groin injury, but he sounded confident that he would be productive against the Rockets.
“It wasn’t as bad as the hamstring,” Farmar said at shootaround. “For the sake of the season and where we are, what was the point of risking it? Training staff was just being overly cautious…We sat out probably a few more days, a week longer than I had to.”
Given his injuries this season and his uncertain future with the team, the former UCLA Bruin was asked if he had any regrets about leaving significant money on the table to return to the Lakers in the offseason.
“For me, it wasn’t coming back for one season,” Farmar said he had no regrets. “It was to be here for a while.”
Farmar sounded intent on staying in the NBA and, likely, staying with the Lakers. For the final five games, the 27-year-old has the opportunity to provide fans and management multiple reminders of why he should be back in LA next season.
Farmar will look to provide the first of those reminders on Tuesday night, when tip-off for the Lakers and Rockets is 7:30 pm Pacific Time.
