Derek Fisher

Derek Lamar Fisher (born August 9, 1974) is an American professional basketball player, whose NBA career has spanned more than 14 years. He currently serves as the president of the National Basketball Players Association. He has won 5 NBA Championships.

Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Fisher started out his basketball career at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Selected the twenty-fourth draft pick by the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1996 NBA Draft, Fisher spent his first eight seasons with the franchise. During this time, he played a role in the Lakers' "three-peat", and was the third-leading scorer on the team behind Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal. After his success with Los Angeles, Fisher opted out of his contract and signed with the Golden State Warriors. After his stint with Golden State, Fisher was traded to the Utah Jazz, where he helped lead the team to the Western Conference Finals. Due to his daughter's health, he asked to be released from his contract and rejoined the Lakers in 2007. In 2010, he won his fifth NBA Championship with the Lakers. Only he and Kobe Bryant have played in all five of the Lakers' most recent championships.

Fisher has played in 199 career playoff games, the fifth highest total in NBA history. He ranks second all time in NBA Finals three-pointers made (43), behind former teammate Robert Horry. He has the highest three-point field goal percentage in NBA Finals history (42.6%). The NBA listed his "0.4 Shot" as the 18th-greatest playoff moment of all time.

On September 8, 2009, Fisher released a book, Character Driven: Life, Lessons, and Basketball. He is credited as the author of the book with Gary Brozek contributing.

As a graduate of University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR), Fisher returned in 2005, donating $700,000 to the University for an auxiliary gym at the Stephens Center and to establish Fisher Fellows, a mentoring program for neighborhood middle school students. The Fisher Fellows program provides guidance to sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students from Southwest Middle School who are paired with UALR student athletes to learn the concepts of life, academics, organizational, social, and athletic skills.

Several days before the 2007 Western Conference Semifinals between the Jazz and the Golden State Warriors began, Fisher stated that one of his four children was ill, avoiding going into further detail other than to say he needed to be with his family and his playing status was uncertain. It was not until a post-game interview after Game 2 that Fisher revealed the situation involving his then-11-month-old daughter, Tatum. She had been diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a degenerative and rare form of eye cancer, which required an emergency three-hour surgery and chemotherapy at New York's Presbyterian Hospital.

After their family's experiences with retinoblastoma, Derek and his wife, Candace, created the Derek & Candace Fisher Family Foundation, an organization to raise awareness about this tragic form of cancer, and to fight the disease.