Derek Fisher’s love life should be the subject of a Lifetime movie.
Fisher, who was fired as New York Knicks head coach earlier this week, had an altercation with former teammate Matt Barnes back in October for allegedly dating Barnes’ estranged wife, Gloria Govan. It sounds like a weird situation — one Barnes still doesn’t seem too thrilled about — but it turns out that Fisher also might have been involved in a separate love triangle. At least that’s the rumor.
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst discussed the Fisher-Barnes drama on a podcast this week, at which point he dropped a piece of juicy gossip that since has had the Internet buzzing.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Kevin (Arnovitz), but Tim Hardaway Jr. had to go on the record to discuss whether he and Derek Fisher were involved with the same woman,” Windhorst said, according to The Big Lead. “I’m fairly certain he had to go on the record and said he had to deal with that. So it wasn’t just Matt Barnes.”
Whoa.
As if Fisher dating an ex-teammate’s estranged wife wasn’t enough, now we’re forced to wonder whether the former Knicks coach was involved with one of his players’ girlfriends?
Hardaway spent his first two seasons with the Knicks — Fisher was there for one of them (2014-15) — before being traded to the Atlanta Hawks this past June. Fisher’s usage of Hardaway on the court was questionable at times, so one can’t help but wonder if it was related to something that happened off the court.
The rumors Windhorst mentioned are unsubstantiated at this point. It could be nothing more than hearsay. But as Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News wrote Friday, the incident involving Barnes at least allows for the plausibility of rumors involving Fisher and other players’ wives. According to Bondy, Hardaway even addressed such rumors about Fisher and his girlfriend earlier this season.
“I’ve seen those. No reaction over here. I know all those are lies. They are going to do whatever they can, especially here in New York (with the media),” Hardaway told reporters, according to Bondy. “So I am not even worried about that. I had a talk with my girlfriend. If you ask me, it is not true at all. I am completely positive with her judgment and what she said.”
True or not, it’s time for someone to start writing a made-for-TV movie about Fisher’s alleged dating habits. The only problem is we don’t know the ending just yet.
Thumbnail photo via Nelson Chenault/USA TODAY Sports Images
