LOS ANGELES — Knicks rookie coach Derek Fisher may get a standing ovation Thursday night, but not for anything he has done lately on the sidelines. It's all about the Los Angeles memories.
This isn't the way Fisher envisioned going home to coach against the Lakers for the first time at Staples Center — fronting the NBA's worst team at 12-51. He also couldn't imagine his former team, which he helped lift to five titles, would carry in the league's fourth-worst mark at 17-46, or that his buddy, Kobe Bryant, again would be out for the season.
Fisher admits both marquee franchises are "below the ground'' in starting over. Knicks president Phil Jackson and Lakers boss Jeanie Buss unofficially have become the losingest couple in NBA history with a combined single-season record of 29-97.
"I don't know if it's weird, but I'm sure for them and their organization it's frustrating, but they seem committed to figuring out what they need to do to turn it around and we're trying to do the same thing here,'' Fisher said. "Sustaining excellence, greatness, even being really good is hard to do. And sometimes we have to kind of start over from actually not ground level, but below the ground and kind of re-soil the foundation in order to have something you can build that's gonna stay there for a while. So that's what we're trying to do. It has no impact on the game Thursday.''
The bigger battle between the Lakers and Knicks will be on lottery night in mid-May, when they jostle for the top pick, and during the free-agent campaign that begins July 1. Both clubs have cap space.
Fisher still has a house in Los Angeles, but said he is trying to sell it. Fisher has a five-year contract. His coaching staff — Kurt Rambis, Jim Cleamons and Rasheed Hazzard — also has heavy Laker roots.
"I think about how thankful and blessed I am and how fortunate I feel for the life that I'm living,'' Fisher said when asked to reflect on his return to Los Angeles. "To play this game for as long as I have, to play in L.A. for as long as I did, and now to be coming back there as a coach in the NBA, I'm thankful and grateful, I'm appreciative to our organization for this chance. I promise you I'm not going to quit on what we're doing, and we're going to figure this out until we become the success that we know we can be."
Derek Fisher and Phil Jackson in happier times, celebrating an NBA championship.Photo: AP
When the Knicks faced the Clippers in Los Angeles on New Year's Eve, that fan base gave Fisher polite applause. Figure it to be much warmer Thursday, when the arena transforms into a purple-and-gold mecca.
"Every time that I've played [in Los Angeles] as a non-Laker, the crowd seemed receptive and appreciative,'' Fisher said. "We had some great years there and great teams. … That doesn't go away. When life takes you somewhere else, every time you come back, I think people appreciate what you accomplished while you were there."
Fisher's rhetoric has been much stronger than his coaching with the Knicks enduring their latest losing streak — five games. It's hard to pounce on Fisher now because Jackson systematically has destroyed the roster, trading J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert and buying out Amar'e Stoudemire to save $6.25 million in payroll and encouraging Carmelo Anthony to have season-ending surgery. In each of the latest five losses, the Knicks have failed to reach 90 points. Their marquee scorers are now a pair of international disappointments, Andrea Bargnani and Alexey Shved.
Still, it figures to be a special night for Fisher even if TNT long ago yanked the game from its national broadcast schedule.
"The city of L.A. has been phenomenal to me, so I don't expect [an ovation] or feel entitled to it,'' Fisher said. "But I'm always appreciative of how people respond to your hard work. I think that's what we all kind of hope will happen: you work at something, you put your all into it and maybe people appreciate it.''
There's speculation Buss didn't make a play for Fisher as Lakers coach because Jackson, her fiancé needed a rebound hire after Steve Kerr spurned the Knicks to coach the Warriors. Fisher has said the Lakers never made an inquiry, instead hiring former Nets coach and Lakers player Byron Scott.
"I never really had any serious conversations or thoughts about it with [the Lakers],'' Fisher said. "So their internal thinking on why or why not, I'm not sure on. But I'm embracing the challenge we have in front of us right now and haven't really thought about missing out on anything because I'm here and I'm all in with this one."
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