Sixteen years after I met Derek Fisher at the Lakers’ training camp in Honolulu I am writing about his departure from the team and his move to Oklahoma City.

If the rest of the second round NBA playoff series goes like Game 1 – when the Thunder routed the Lakers – this will be a story of how Fisher outsmarted his former team.

They essentially decided they needed a younger, faster point guard and they obtained Ramon Sessions late in the season. That’s fine. But instead of keeping Fisher as a backup they traded him, quite possibly to avoid having to pay his $3.7 million contract for next season.

That sounds like a lot of money but it’s really chicken feed in the NBA. A less frugal Laker plan would have been to keep Fisher for his many contributions both on the court and in the locker room where he was a team leader.

Instead the Lakers traded him to Houston, and that sent a clear message. They were saying we don’t want this guy anymore, but we don’t want to play against him in the playoffs because he could hurt us, so we’ll send him to a team that probably be a factor in the playoffs.

But they were messing with the wrong guy. To be honest, Fisher outsmarted them.

He was president of the Players Association and knew all the rules. He saw a way around the Lakers’ plan.

“I didn’t see the trade coming,” he said. ‘I was quite surprised. But after the initial shock I looked for a way to make something good out of something bad.”

Unlike Lamar Odom, who was traded by the Lakers to Dallas earlier in the year and let it ruin his season, Fisher went to work.

He refused to report, and the NBA has a way to deal with that. Fisher was trying to gain his freedom and could get it by meeting withthe Houston management and asking for a settlement of his contract. He went pretty far, agreeing to bypass next season’s $3.7 million to become a free agent.

When Houston agreed, Fisher became free to sign with anyone, and with a championship in mind he chose the Thunder, a young team that could benefit from his championship experience.

Now he has a chance to help the Thunder eliminate the Lakers, and they have themselves to blame.

Fisher isn’t a starter on the Thunder but he’s been a big help in the playoffs. When defenses are set to concentrate on Thunder superstars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, Fisher finds openings.

In a regular season game he sparked the Thunder to a win over the Lakers in Staples Center by settling down his teammates in the second quarter after the Lakers got off to a fast start.

In the Thunder’s first playoff round sweep of the defending champion Dallas Mavericks, Fisher was at his best in the two road games. He scored 10 points in Game 3 and 11 in Game 4.

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“When he signed with us he didn’t play as well initially as people thought he wood,” said Oklahoma City coach Scott Brooks.

“But he showed our younger players how a professional conducts himself. He worked every day to learn his new teammates and he learned how he coukd fit in. On both offense and defense he’s always in the right place.

“The easiest way to explain is to recognize that he’s simply a winner.”

Fisher, far from a great shooter 16 years ago, helped the Lakers win five championships with his superb defensive play and clutch shooting. He was a 40 percent shooter in college but made himself into a guy who could make game-winners when defenses concentrated on Kobe Bryant.

I admire Fisher for his determination and work ethic. I’m sorry the Lakers made a financial decision that didn’t take into consideration the intangibles, but I’m happy for the unheralded rookie who came to camp in 1996..

We writers were assigned to cover the colossal event of Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal joining the Lakers.

We got more than we expected from that camp – a polite, determined newcomer who would merit this coverage even in 2012.