Booing Derek Fisher is totally dumb. He left for reasons outside of his control, more or less. The same thing happens with those dumbass Dallas fans, booing Michael Finley whenever he comes into town – Earth to the people of Dallas Texas, Michael Finley didn’t have a say in being traded…..

Now, I’m not going to try and defend all Jazz fans. I’m pretty sure some of them did boo Fisher thinking that he did use his daughter to get out. Every fanbase has the type of fans that other fanbases call classless and that the rest of that teams fanbase don’t want to be associated by. We know Utah has them… the guys that uttered racial slurs or whatever to the Warriors (which was enough to turn all of GSoM against the entire fanbase), and then the guys that threw stuff at Bruce Bowen, and now booing Fish… yeah.

I’ll admit, I found Fisher’s departure highly suspicious. The timing… how quickly he had a new team… and more. But even then, Fisher held a conference telling us all why he was doing it. There is no real reason to think he’s a liar unless something else comes out. So booing him for trying to take care of his daughter is indeed heartless & classless.

Here’s the thing though… that’s not why all of us booed him (I actually didn’t boo… I missed the game, but I would’ve booed after the introductions, where I would have at least applauded Fisher the person). The reason he got booed is because he was on the opposing team… the Lakers of all teams. The same team Karl Malone defected too. Malone got booed too. As did Raja Bell. And Gordan Giricek (surprising… he really did very little with the Jazz). The Jazz fans cheer for the Jazz, and boo everyone else. Like most other fans.

Fisher the Jazz… let’s not get into that. Save for some veteran leadership that he brought (according to ESPN at least) and the huge shot in the playoffs, his tenure was sub-par. His outside shooting (what he was brought in for) was bad. He started at the 2-guard, which resulted in many 2-guards going off on our 6’2 “2-guard”. It was frustrating… I don’t think that the blame falls fully on Fisher though. I mean, we have a coach stupid enough to think that he can stop someone like Kobe or T-Mac or whatnot.

Most of us (I’d assume) weren’t booing Fisher the person or Fisher the father or even Fisher the Jazz-ster with a bad season. We were booing Fisher the Laker. Plain and simple, he’s playing for a hated team. He left after 1 season here and joined one of the few teams that Jazz fans hate with undying passion (reason unknown).

Brad Rock of the Deseret News did try to figure out why we hate the Lakers, and came up with this. Included in that is this quote that pretty much sums it up…

Still, it may not be personal. They also booed Karl Malone’s return as a Laker, despite 18 seasons in Utah; booed Gordan Giricek and Raja Bell upon their returns, too.


In Utah, it’s pretty easy to differentiate the good guys from the bad. The good guys are wearing Jazz blue. Everyone else is a cockroach.

That’s truly what it is. The people that booed Fisher the person, the father… they exist, yes. That doesn’t mean all Jazz fans are the same. Most of us have no desire to be included in the same group. But what can you do? Someone (ESPN) latches onto a story, and all of a sudden all Jazz fans are classless idiots that put sports above everything else. Not true.

None of us (bloggers, at least) have ever advocated booing Fisher the person. But Fisher the Laker… we all hate him. Just like we hate Kobe. And Phil Jackson. And all Lakers. Some just get louder boos (Kobe, Fisher) than others (Luke Walton, for example), because seriously… what has Luke Walton ever done to the Jazz?

Will people think I’m just being stupid? Probably. But I still firmly believe that Jazz fans (in general) are getting a bad rap because of a couple of idiots. Will people continue to judge is in that way? Probably. Is it right, or even fair to the fans who cheered Fisher at the introduction or those that just booed Fisher the Laker? Nope. Not close.

The Jazz booed every Laker, why should Fish not get the same treatment?

The Jazz fans booed freaking Karl Malone when he returned to Salt Lake as a Laker.

Yeesh, what are you, Hillary Clinton?

of the booing was classless. So are the polygamy comments.

Face it, what the Utah fans are doing it utterly despicable. The first time I heard it during game three I was absolutely shocked and didn’t think that they could be doing what I thought they were doing. To call what is going on classless is a misnomer, it is HEARTLESS. This is not even close to the same thing as what happened with Karl Malone. Malone absolutely abandoned the Jazz for a pathetic last ditch effort at a championship. That was shameless and worth of being booed. But lets all read this carefully. Derek Fisher’s daughter has CANCER. It is the most extreme, life threatening disease there is and you want to boo him because there doesn’t happen to be a doctor in Utah who can treat the rare form that she has. Now, LA being one of the handful of NBA cities that has the resources to help his child makes absolute sense for Fisher to go to. Why wouldn’t he want to return to the franchise where he spent the first 8 seasons of his career and be amongst people and surroundings he is most familiar with, that just makes TOO MUCH SENSE. The Utah fans don’t boo every single player on every single play just “because they are Lakers”. They only boo two people, Kobe Bryant (understandable) and Fisher (unacceptable). It’s just a shame because Fisher is one of the few really good guys in the NBA and is probably the person that least deserves to be booed.