LOS ANGELES — In the courtside-seat celebrity ring Sunday night at Staples Center you had some of the elite: David Beckham, Barry Bonds, Will Ferrell, George Lopez, Jack Nicholson.

Jason Bateman and John Krasinski were there, too. Sitting next to each other and talking all game long ... you just know they were cracking wise something awesome.

That's sort of the way it is with the Lakers, headlined by Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum, Derek Fisher and Pau Gasol — yet very possibly providing greater entertainment value on any given night with second-unit go-getters Trevor Ariza, Jordan Farmar and Sasha Vujacic with glue guy Lamar Odom.

If you were to use the old position-by-position comparison Sunday night, the check marks would have been overwhelming in the Lakers' favor over the Sacramento Kings' starters ... and I'm talking about in favor of the Lakers' second unit.

Farmar or Beno Udrih? No matter that Udrih was just gifted a ridiculous $32 million contract by the Kings, Farmar is better right now and certainly will be down the road.

Vujacic or John Salmons? Close one, because with the playing time and opportunities Salmons is getting on his weak team, Vujacic would put up fantasy-worthy numbers, too. But based on Salmons' 24 points Sunday night, we'll give this one to the Kings.

Ariza or Jason Thompson? Obviously.

Odom or Brad Miller? The fading Miller's no longer even in the discussion for best white American NBAer anymore. Odom gives the Lakers' second unit a critical team-oriented mentality.

Bynum/Gasol or Spencer Hawes? Please.

Sunday was neither an entertaining nor effective night for "The Bench Mob," however. It was an overconfidence game — the Lakers recognizing and wanting to demonstrate their individual advantages and let somebody else worry about getting back on defense. It left Bryant saying: "I'm not happy with this win. I felt like we didn't particularly get better tonight."

The start of the fourth quarter — a regular showcase time for the second unit — was especially individualistic. Coach Phil Jackson left Farmar, Vujacic, Ariza, Odom and Bynum out there to work it out ... and they couldn't. The Lakers' 96-80 lead to start the fourth dropped to 105-101 with 6:17 to play, at which point Bryant, Fisher and Gasol came to join Ariza and Odom on the court.

With them came a 9-0 run that moved the Lakers' record to 11-1.

"Good recovery by the starters," Jackson said.

Before the game Jackson had something interesting to say about the reserves: "What's the goal of that group when they're out there on the floor? That's to play together as a team, even though the lead may be 20 points. It's not to pad your own stats."

Jackson went so far as to say the Lakers' garbage time is "really important." He's that intent on achieving team harmony and he said specifically of Vujacic: "He has to buy into that."

It's no surprise that the only blips on that radar lately have come from bench guys: Odom, who is heading into his free-agent summer, was unhappy with his playing time against Detroit, and Ariza got out-of-line angry with Vujacic for not playing team ball against Chicago.

Jackson said he had a private talk about team play with Vujacic more than a week ago — which means the talk happened before Ariza got upset with Vujacic not passing the ball back to him when Ariza was open in the corner Tuesday night. Farmar and Vujacic back up and respect the team's two captains,

Fisher and Bryant, but Farmar's and Vujacic's personalities are not designed for deference to anyone.

Just before Ariza got on him that night, Vujacic managed to irk Farmar into yelling at him with a simple glance and depressed body language after Farmar had missed a 3-pointer instead of passing to

Vujacic in the corner for the last shot before the first-quarter buzzer— a play quite similar to the Ariza-Vujacic one, actually.

Most of the time there is plenty to go around as the second unit shows its unity with swarming team defense for transition fun. But what everyone needs to realize is that Farmar is the MVM — the Most Valuable Mobster — even ahead of the highly skilled, more experienced Odom. When Farmar got into foul trouble vs. Chicago and Fisher had to come in to play with the second unit in the second quarter, it was palpably awkward. Farmar is that indispensible.

Jackson was asked if he is giving Farmar, who turns 22 in a week, more license this season than last season, when Jackson shoved the triangle offense aside to let Farmar push the ball and tempo whenever he was in the game.

"I've always wanted players to play within their parameters of what they can do," Jackson said. "But we keep working with Jordan on territory that we think he can improve on, and we enjoy watching him expand his game as he goes along."