Imagine you’ve eaten only the finest cuisine your entire life, sipped only the priciest French wines.
And then you get served raccoon tartare with motor oil to wash it down.
Maybe then you would get an idea of what Derek Fisher is experiencing as he coaches the worst team in Knicks history.
For 18 seasons as a player, Fisher found winning nearly routine. Twelve times, his teams won at least 50 games, five times they took home the NBA title.
“I’m not comparing this to any other time in my basketball career. This is the first time I’ve been in this position,” Fisher said Tuesday after Knicks practice in Tarrytown.
First time coaching, of course. But also, the first time where losing is the norm. Only twice as a player did Fisher experience a losing season — two years with the Warriors that produced identical 34-48 records in 2004-05 and 2005-06.
Hey, you don’t think 34 wins looks like one of those gourmet meals right now? The Knicks carry a 10-45 record, basically stale Lucky Charms, into Boston Wednesday, a mark that includes a losing streak of 16 games — or one more defeat than Fisher experienced his entire third season in the league. By New Year’s, Fisher’s Knicks lost more games, 29, than 12 of his teams did in a full season.
As Magic Johnson said during All-Star Weekend while discussing the Knicks losing:
“Think about Derek’s record. He hasn’t experienced this. Man, I feel for Derek.”
And that from a guy who also said the worst losing he experienced was getting bounced in the first round of the playoffs. In New York, they retire numbers after such an achievement.
“This is the first year of us trying to do a lot of the things we’re doing,” Fisher said. “So we can take some of our past experiences and try to utilize those things to help our group become what we’re trying to become. But other than just not enjoying when you lose, I’m not taking this on personally as if it’s going to define my career. Hopefully, our players aren’t doing that either. We’re really just trying to find a way to take each day’s challenges because that’s all we can control.”
Fisher, who enjoyed a stunning 912-467 (.661) regular-season record with the Lakers (mainly), Thunder, Warriors, Jazz and Mavs, insists it will be better.
“Things will be one day just as good as they are bad and we have to just still have some faith, if we keep working hard, keep doing the right things, we keep surrounding ourselves with the right people that it will get there,” Fisher said.
That part may seem hard to grasp now when you eyeball the current Knicks and don’t see six of the guys who figured to be rotation mainstays in October, including franchise face Carmelo Anthony, on crutches after knee surgery. But Fisher is fueled by hope. And he said he reminds himself of better days daily.
Unfortunately, the guy who delivered so many clutch playoff shots can’t close his eyes and say, “It’s only a movie, it’s only a movie … ”
“It’s a choice,” Fisher said. “Maybe it sounds cliché or it sounds coach-speak or whatever but it’s a choice to remain focused on where you can be and who you can become as opposed to allow where you are now to define your life or your destiny or your character or your career. So we all have those choices and our players have to make them and I have to make them as a coach. That’s a choice that I choose to make and over time, that will work well, not just for me but the things that we’re trying to share with our players as well.”