My father loves basketball. He moved to Los Angeles from Vermont as a teenager, and began a life long passion for the Los Angeles Lakers. He saw every stitch of success that LA hardwood could provide from Wilt Chamberlain to Shaquille O’Neal, and anybody else as long as it was purple and gold.

I was his fourth child, his only son. When I was a child he’d visit us and I’d sit and listen to his countless stories about places like the Great Western Forum and people — heroes — like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy, Bob McAdoo, and, of course, Ervin Magic Johnson, the man with the sweet pass, and the sweeter smile, a true example of simply loving the game.

Whether I was a young child in West Valley City, Utah or a young teenager in Los Angeles, it was always about Laker basketball. In my lifetime I’ve seen them win three NBA titles, and though it was all about Kobe and Shaq in those years I had two players of my own that I held as idols — one was Rick Fox, the other was Derek Fisher.

Fox was the role player of all role players. He could fit anywhere on the court if you needed him to, he’d block a shot if it was in the air and he’d make a shot if it was absolutely needed. His personality matched his curly hair and he always seemed to just want to be on the court.

Fisher was different. He wasn’t athletic like Kobe Bryant, he wasn’t as strong as Shaq, heck, he wasn’t even as tall as his coach, but you’d never say that to him. Fisher was the pulse in that Laker era — he was the speedster when things were slow, the shooter when nothing went in, the one thing going when everything seemed to stop. He made the big shots and the small ones, he stuck any man on defense, and he never, ever gave up at any time. Most of all, he always did it with a smile, patting every player on the back and sporting a look the proved he simply loved life whether it be a .4 second buzzer beater or a bounce pass to Kobe on the baseline.

When Fisher was traded to Utah last season, I couldn’t have been more excited. If the Jazz needed anything, it was the character of Fisher — that hard work, smile, and mentality that you’re always teaching lessons, and always making a difference. All throughout the 2006-07 season he taught those lessons by example to a young Utah Jazz team, a team with the desired to follow his example, and it gave them success, and even in the moment when he left the franchise, he taught a lesson that was beyond all of that.

Fisher made a peaceful parting with the Utah Jazz last week, in hopes of having more time to be with his family and take care of his daughter who is suffering from a form of eye cancer. Fisher still had a few years left on his contract, which in most cases would keep him bound to Utah, but in such a time of need Jazz owner Larry H. Miller released Fisher from the contract, proving that he was seeing what was important.

It’s an old saying but it still speaks true — you can’t sacrifice what you want most for what you want at the moment — and that is what Fisher exemplified with his choice to leave the Jazz. For Fisher “family first” was more than a phrase, but a way to live, a stone-written lifestyle by which you follow. There are some things that basketball can’t fix, some trials a Larry O’Brien trophy can’t ease, some places not meant for hardwood and nylon nets, and some games only played by the heart. Fisher will be missed in Utah, but his reason for departure is as understandable as two plus two.

As noble as it was for Fisher, the same goes for Miller, who performed a rare task of releasing a man from his contract, and letting a key player on his own road. At that moment, we saw Miller as the family man, instead of businessman, and it was pleasing to know that dollar signs and trophies weren’t all that made this man tick.

I just recently graduated from high school, at this point I can’t fathom having a wife or children. I’m not sure just yet what kind of a husband or father I will be, but I know that if I could choose I would be one similar to Fisher, my hero — stopping at nothing to seek the happiness of my family, letting no task put me in the way of their welfare, living every last moment to prove that I love them.

He may not be Kobe, he may not be Shaq, at times he may not even be Rick Fox, but as far as I’m concerned the Fisher family is lucky to have the greatest man in the NBA as a husband and father, and for that he’ll always be an icon to me.