Derek Fisher’s actions over the past few years have left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouth. He has gained somewhat of an unfavorable reputation around the NBA as guy who gets up and deserts a team when it’s convenient for him. The general public had sympathy for him when he left the Utah Jazz to care for his ailing daughter, but then he did it with the Houston Rockets last year and the Dallas Mavericks this season, so a pattern is being developed and some people aren’t happy about it.
Well Fisher came out to clarify his stance on why he left the Mavericks.
“I was being open and honest at the time and I’m being open and honest now,” Fisher told the Los Angeles Times. “At the time, I felt strong about the decision on a personal level. It wasn’t anything about Dallas or Mark that I was not happy about. Just personally, I didn’t enjoy being away from my family at the time.
“Over the last couple of months, being out of the game and having a chance to reflect on some things and think about some things, when this opportunity presented itself and I thought about the totality of my career, I decided that this was something I deserved to do for myself. Sometimes as a leader, you can’t make decisions based on what other people are going to think or how they’re going to feel. You just do what you think is right at that time and that’s what I’m doing here.”
“I respect Mark, I respected Coach [Rick] Carlisle, I respect their team,” Fisher told The Times. “That will never change, but it’s not about everyone else necessarily. It’s just about making a decision I felt was best for me at this time.”
So the truth finally comes out, Fisher did it because it was the best move for him not his family, which is the crutch he’s been leaning on to get what he wants. There’s no shame in wanting to play for a contender in the Oklahoma City Thunder and not the mediocre Dallas Mavericks, but how he went about it was all wrong.