Fisher's steady hand a critical part of L.A.'s success

Derek Fisher (above) and backcourt mate Kobe Bryant are the only Lakers players to start every game this season. John W. McDonough/SI

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LOS ANGELES -- Amid the sea changes that have taken place on the Lakers over the last decade -- Shaq is here, Shaq is gone; Phil is here, Phil is gone, Phil is back; Kobe is happy, Kobe is mad, Kobe is happy again -- here is a scene of comforting familiarity after a recent practice session at the team's facility in El Segundo:

Derek Fisher is moving around the perimeter firing up his distinctive left-handed jump shot. About seven of 10 are going in.

Fisher's shooting partner on this day is forward Vladimir Radmanovic. Go back 10 years and it could've been Eddie Jones, or go back five years and it could've been Rick Fox. Whatever else was going on around him, there was Fisher, working on his game, playing hard, staying positive, "at the still point of the turning world," to steal a line from T.S. Eliot.

"Fish is a block," coach Phil Jackson said, "a solid block. Every day, every play. A solid block."

And there you have the most underanalyzed reason that the Lakers, with a 45-19 record through Wednesday, are leading the Western Conference despite a preseason prognosis that looked grim: Derek Fisher is back in the Lakers' backcourt.

Fisher is so often mentioned as a man of character -- Bryant, only half-jokingly, refers to him as "Derek Obama" -- that his on-court contributions are often glossed over. He has never been an elite point guard, but, then, he's not really a point guard. In Jackson's triangle offense, the guards are practically interchangeable. Fisher and Bryant are a little like Jerry West and Gail Goodrich, that Lakers tandem of decades ago, in that there is not a clear point guard or off-guard -- and Fisher has never had the opportunity to be a classic distributor-type quarterback. Then again, lots of 6-foot-1 guards never get a chance to be a shooter, as Fisher is. He is a positional 'tweener, never sensational but consistently reliable.

The 33-year-old Fisher has lost absolutely nothing in his 12th season. He is averaging 12.2 points per game, a little more than he averaged in the Lakers' three-peat years at the beginning of the century when his backcourt mate was also Bryant. He is shooting a career-high 44.3 percent from the floor and 41.3 percent from three-point range. Jackson can give him the ball at crunch time -- even if he's going to eventually get it to Bryant -- because Fisher is stone-cold solid in the clutch and shoots 88.2 percent from the line. True, he averages only 2.9 assists, but that's because Bryant has the ball so much.

Fisher is rock-solid as a defender (block-solid to use Jackson's word). He's especially valuable as a "digger," a guy who has the knack of reaching in to bother post defenders and still being able to close out on perimeter shooters.

But none of that really begins to describe Fisher's importance. "As far as leadership and stability goes," forward Luke Walton said, "Derek brings so much to the table. A young team always has a lot of ups and downs, and Derek is always there. It's more lead-by-example, but when people need it he speaks up, too."

Part of the reason that Bryant's cutthroat style seems to be more effective this season than in the past is that he has two maturing disciples in backup guards Jordan Farmar, 21, and Sasha Vujacic, who turned 24 last week. They can't match Bryant in talent, of course, but they are Kobe clones in terms of fiery disposition. Walton agreed and added: "That's why you need somebody like Fish to level things out," the 27-year-old Walton said. "The young guys may get mad and upset and jump off the handle, but there is Derek, a model on how to be a professional."

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