A five-time NBA champion and Los Angeles Lakers legend paid Manila a visit this past week, his first time back in the Philippines after 13 years and Filipino basketball fans were delighted to welcome him back.
Derek Fisher was in town to headline the Jr. NBA Philippines Coaches Clinic held at the NBA Community Court in Mandaluyong. Esquire Philippines caught up with him after the camp for a quick chat.
Derek Fisher has had a storied NBA career, to say the least, but growing up, the 6-foot-1 point guard from Little Rock, Arkansas never really expected things to turn out the way they did.
The 1996 NBA Draft is considered by many to be one of the best draft classes in NBA history, with that year’s bumper crop of rookies including notable names that have since been inducted in the Naismith Hall of Fame such as Allen Iverson, Steve Nash, Ray Allen, Ben Wallace, and Kobe Bryant.
Fisher was selected by the Lakers as the 24th pick in the first round.
“I literally grew up watching the Lakers play in the 80s,” he says. “I was a big Magic Johnson fan and there wasn’t really anything about my childhood that told me I would play for the Lakers one day.”
Fisher attended the University of Arkansas at Little Rock where he played for the Trojans in the Sun Belt Conference. Aside from winning Player of the Year honors before entering the draft that same year, there wasn’t really much fanfare around Fisher that would indicate interest from a lot of teams so expectations in the Fisher household were tempered on draft night.
“I was in a room about the size of this one back at home in Little Rock and I had no idea whether my name would be called at all,” he recalls.
“There was another guy in the draft who was named Derek so when the commissioner started saying ‘with the 24th pick,’ you know, did his thing, and he said the Derek part first, I still didn’t assume it was me. And so when he said my last name, I lost it.
I jumped up, I started screaming, I was crying like a baby. I just didn’t believe that this thing that was a dream was obviously a big step closer to coming true.