If there was every any doubt regarding how Derek Fisher feels about the Los Angeles Lakers trading him away, there shouldn’t be anymore. He’s not happy about it, clearly. Here is a snippet of the statement he offered to Sam Amick of Sports Illustrated on Wednesday, after it was announced that he would play with the Oklahoma City Thunder for the duration of this season:
“To Kobe, Pau, Andrew, Matt, Steve, Devin, Darius, Josh, Drew, Troy, Metta, Luke, and Jason, and all my teammates in Los Angeles through the years, thank you for your friendship, for the camaraderie, for pushing me each and every day to achieve greatness and letting me lead you the best way I knew how. You each have a lifelong friend and supporter in me.
“Los Angeles will always have a place in my heart, it will remain a home to my family and my businesses, but basketball will be played elsewhere and I look forward to seeing everyone on the court .. even if it is in a different uniform."
Notice anyone missing on that list?
Fisher’s decision to not mention Mike Brown or Lakers management in his closing statement/opening statement is very telling. He obviously never jived with Mike Brown or his style (and it always seemed like Brown preferred Steve Blake to Fisher, anyway), and the organization’s decision to trade him away to free up money also clearly rubbed him the way.
Of course, as we noted yesterday, trading Fisher away was a great move for the Lakers any which way you want to look at it. And while it’s unfortunate that an L.A. legend left town with his feelings hurt, it’s also important to remember that he once left the Lakers for more money and what he perceived to be a better opportunity. So with that in his history, it’s sort of tough to figure out why Fisher thinks it’s wrong that the organization did the same thing to him that he once did to it.
Nevertheless, Fisher’s statement on Wednesday makes the seemingly inevitable Lakers-Thunder postseason war even more intriguing than it already was. (And it was already very intriguing.)
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