Derek Fisher

This is the fourth year Adam Morrison has been in the NBA and it's looming as the biggest of his career. He's in the last year of a contract that pays him $5.2 million and he's on a loaded Lakers team that has left him as the third-string small forward behind Ron Artest and Luke Walton. What the future holds for Morrison is murky. "It's definitely a big year for me personally, as far as contract years always are," Morrison said after the Lakers' practice Tuesday. The Lakers acquired Morrison and Shannon Brown last season from the Charlotte Bobcats.

The facility might not be entirely cooperative, but tonight could still shape up to be Fabulous. The Lakers return to the Forum in Inglewood for an exhibition game against Golden State, a blast from the past in a season that holds a promising future. The Lakers haven't played there since leaving for Staples Center in 1999, but owner Jerry Buss has wanted to return to the Forum for years. Now seemed like a good time, the franchise's 50th year in Los Angeles. The Lakers have had to work overtime to get the building in game shape.

Now starting for the Lakers, rookie Sun Yue. OK, maybe not, but the depth chart at ball-handling guard flashed before the Lakers' eyes after Derek Fisher left Wednesday's game because of a minor strain in his left groin muscle. He was injured while guarding San Antonio's George Hill on a drive and called time out a few seconds later. He walked into the locker room with longtime trainer Gary Vitti and missed almost 4 1/2 minutes of actual game time, emerging with 3:37 left in the fourth quarter.

Kobe Bryant rings up the stats that crawl across the cable-TV tickers all night long, Pau Gasol has been a triple-double threat lately, and Lamar Odom has been scoring and rebounding with abandon. It doesn't leave much room in the box score for Derek Fisher, but he still manages to get in his points. "I try to, man," he said, smiling. Fisher has been on a late-game roll, adding a pair of jump shots Tuesday that helped the Lakers turn a wobbly lead into a 107-93 victory over Oklahoma City.

Lakers guard Derek Fisher obtained a temporary restraining order Monday against a woman who has allegedly stalked him for years and changed her last name to Fisher, according to court papers. The woman, Symone Fisher, has allegedly sent a number of e-mails, messages on social networking sites and letters to the Lakers star claiming to be his wife, even though the two have never met, Derek Fisher wrote in a declaration.

Staff writer Mike Bresnahan ties up some loose ends on days of Lakers playoff games. -- The Fisher effect Derek Fisher hasn't exactly been great, making nine of his last 47 three-point attempts (19.1%), but his on-court leadership will be missed tonight. In fact, after crunching a series of important logarithms and permutations, I think his absence will cost the Lakers exactly 7.1 points in Game 3. OK, maybe all I did was subtract Jordan Farmar's playoff scoring average from Fisher's.

Lakers guard Derek Fisher is suspended for tonight's game, which opens a fairly large portal for either Jordan Farmar or Shannon Brown. Make that a fairly small portal. The reserve guard who ends up starting tonight in Game 3 gets to chase undersized fireball Aaron Brooks around the court as the Lakers and Houston jockey for a 2-1 lead in the Western Conference semifinals.

He had swiveled on defense, bricked on offense, the aging point guard scuffling through a long night in this longest of springs. But in the waning moments of the furious storm that was Game 3 of the Western Conference finals against the Denver Nuggets on Saturday night, Derek Fisher knew he had one thing that his younger teammates didn't. Some would call it wisdom. Some would call it experience. Some would forgo any definition and just call it soul.

La Vida Fisher. Knowing how loco this subculture is, as Derek Fisher does, it's still a mind-bender to find yourself written off one moment, and a hero the next . . . for saying a few words to your teammates before the fourth quarter of Game 3, when they turned the Western Conference finals around. You've heard of King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans? Meet Fish and his 11 Lakers.

No, no, no! The Lakers wanted a Finals with characters, like Mickey Mouse, Dwight Howard and Stan Van Gundy, not character, although they were getting more than they bargained for, at least for three games plus 47 minutes and 56 seconds. At that point, Derek Fisher buried a three-pointer to send Game 4 into overtime, where the Lakers proceeded to beat the Orlando Magic, 99-91, on Thursday night, taking a 3-1 lead in the series that seemed about to be tied.