Draft-day dealings looking like a steal

June 28 was big for the Lakers, the date of the 2006 draft and the official union of Jordan Farmar with a franchise in need of a point guard for the future.

Later that night, long after a city had realized it would spend even more time watching the former UCLA guard, a Lakers spokesman announced a footnote to the event: They had acquired forward-guard Maurice Evans from the Detroit Pistons for the rights to second-round pick Cheick Samb, a 7-foot, 195-pound center from Senegal.

Evans wasn’t surprised. His playing time had dwindled during the playoffs and he had asked Pistons President Joe Dumars to trade him. He wanted more minutes.

“I know my value and I know Sam Cheng, or whatever the dude’s name was -- Cheick Samb, something like that -- I think Joe Dumars, again, it was just a classy move on his behalf,” Evans said. “Detroit was kind of stacked and he allowed me to seek a trade and this is a good fit in my opinion. I came here because I wanted to play.”

Play he did on Friday night against New Jersey.

His physical, lockdown defense held Vince Carter to two points in the fourth quarter after he’d scored 31 in the first three. Evans picked up Carter after Kobe Bryant got into foul trouble late in the third quarter.

“I’m not saying I’m just going to shut somebody out, but if you can at least make them have to work hard, that takes pressure off Kobe,” Evans said. “Now he’s able to go over and kind of rest.”

Evans, who had 15 points in a victory Wednesday at Minnesota, had 12 Friday. Farmar, meanwhile, had 10 points and five assists.

“He really is a player we need at this time,” Coach Phil Jackson said of Evans. “Without Lamar [Odom], we become less mobile and less able to cover those mobile guys.”

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The Lakers are two days away from another Christmas Day game with the Miami Heat, the third time in as many years they’ve played each other in front of a national audience on that day.

The league, perhaps cognizant that it is separating players and coaches from family and friends on the holiday, hands out gifts to them that are eagerly snapped up and put to use.

Well, maybe not.

“The gifts that I get from the NBA, they’re so spectacular that I’ve mounted them all up,” Jackson said dryly. “A couple of them, I haven’t even understood what they were. One was a portable TV that I don’t know if it works or not.”

Then Jackson got a little more serious about the holiday games.

“It’s an honor to be spotlighted for that as a player and a coach and a team,” he said. “And yet we know that it’s one of the professional chores that you do as far as being part of this league.”

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com