NBA union leaders want Derek Fisher out as president

Derek Fisher, the NBA players’ union president since 2006, has been asked to resign by the executive committee.

It appears that there is a behind-the-scenes power struggle between Fisher and Billy Hunter, the NBPA’s longtime executive director, over a call for an audit and business review of the association’s finances.

The National Basketball Players’ Union said in a statement Friday that its executive committee voted 8-0 on Wednesday to seek the resignation of the longtime Lakers and current Oklahoma City point guard.

But Fisher, who helped negotiate the current collective-bargaining agreement during contentious talks that forced the NBA to cancel two months of the season, is refusing to step down, according to a report from Yahoo! Sports.

The statement by the NBPA’s executive committee said it based the decision “on numerous instances over the past six months, where Fisher engaged in conduct detrimental to the union, including acting in contravention of the players’ best interests, during collective bargaining, declining to follow the NBPA Constitution, and failing to uphold the duties of the Union President.”

In a brief statement made before the Thunder’s shootaround in Sacramento on Friday, Fisher said “the quickest, most efficient way to say it is to say that I do and I’ve always taken my job as president of the players’ association very, very seriously.”

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NBA union leaders want Derek Fisher out as president