Derek Fisher, American basketball player and coach
Derek Lamar Fisher (born August 9, 1974) is an American basketball coach and former player who is the head coach and the general manager for the Los Angeles Sparks of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). Fisher played professionally in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for 18 seasons, spending the majority of his career with the Los Angeles Lakers, with whom he won five NBA championships. He also played for the Golden State Warriors, Utah Jazz, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Dallas Mavericks. He has also served as president of the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA).
Fisher played college basketball for the Arkansas–Little Rock Trojans, earning the Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year in 1996. Selected by the Lakers with the 24th pick in the 1996 NBA draft, he spent his first eight seasons with the franchise, winning three consecutive league championships (2000–2002) with teammates Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal and coach Phil Jackson. After the 2003–04 NBA season, he signed as a free agent with the Golden State Warriors, later being traded to the Utah Jazz, whom he helped lead to the Western Conference finals. Due to his daughter's health, he asked to be released from his contract in 2007. He rejoined the Lakers and won two more NBA titles with Bryant and Jackson.
In 2012, he was traded to the Houston Rockets, where he bought out his contract and was waived at his request. He then joined the Oklahoma City Thunder for the remainder of the season, playing for the 2012 NBA championship in his eighth Finals appearance. After signing with the 2012–13 Dallas Mavericks he played only nine games before being injured and asking to be released from his contract. He later rejoined the Oklahoma City Thunder for another late-season push. He re-signed with them in the off-season and played in a team-high 81 regular-season games for the team in 2013–14. The following season, he was hired as the head coach of the New York Knicks by Jackson, who had become the team's president. He was fired in 2016, and has since been featured as a broadcast television analyst on Turner Sports' NBA programming. Fisher also joined Spectrum SportsNet for the 2016–17 NBA season to work as an in-studio analyst for the Los Angeles Lakers. On January 19, 2017, Fisher was announced as one of the analysts for Turner Sports' new Players Only programming slate.Fisher was the all-time NBA record holder in playoff games played until he was passed by LeBron James in 2020. While playing for the Lakers, Fisher hit a buzzer-beater with 0.4 second left in game 5 of the 2004 Western Conference Semifinals against the San Antonio Spurs, which the NBA lists as the 18th-greatest playoff moment of all time.