Derek Fisher Not Thinking About Retirement

The aging DFish has no intent to ride off into the sunset, which must make Laker fans feel just wonderful on the inside. The OC Register reports: “Derek Fisher will be 37 before he plays another NBA game — 38 if he, as NBA players’ union president can’t help prevent last season from being lost to work stoppage — but he is not considering retirement at all. ‘That’s not even a thought,’ Fisher said Tuesday. Fisher said the Lakers didn’t get better this season, saying: ‘Sometimes you think you have it figured out.’ He expressed confidence the team, as constructed, would succeed next season. ‘I’d take the same exact group of guys and line ‘em up and lace ‘em up and we’d get the job done,’ Fisher said. ‘That’s what I believe can and will happen.’ Fisher accepted the past failure as being related to the grind and success the Lakers experienced. ‘In a sense, we were set up to have a fall at some point,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think anyone imagined or envisioned us falling in this way. … This feels worse than losing in the Finals in ’08. … Losing this early, it’s a totally different animal to have to wrestle with.'”