Lakers Moments: Rick Fox is a sly one

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Excuse the interception: Lakers forward Rick Fox steals a pass intended for Sacramento Kings player Mike Bibby in the first half of a game at Staples Center on March 24, 2004.

Fox may have spent the first six seasons of his NBA career playing for the Lakers’ bitter rival, the Boston Celtics, but he fit in just fine in Los Angeles after signing as a free agent in September 1997.

He’s said to have served as a facilitator between some of the super-sized egos on a team that won three NBA championships during the Canadian-born forward’s seven years in L.A.

‘We had our tough times,’ Fox said in an article in The Times. ‘I was always the proudest in that amidst the fighting and turmoil we were able to pull together and care enough for each other and the city.’

Fox was a regular starter on the Lakers’ championship teams in 2000-01 and 2001-02, with the fourth-best scoring average on the team each year (9.6 points a game in 2000-01 and 7.9 in 2001-02 during the regular season and close to 10 in the playoffs both years).

After struggling with foot and thumb injuries throughout the 2003-04 season, Fox was traded to the Celtics during the Lakers’ tumultuous 2004 off-season. He retired before the start of the 2005 season. He spent 13 years in the NBA and ranks 95th on the league’s all-time list in three-point attempts (2,208).

Read more about Rick Fox in All Things Lakers, the Los Angeles’ Times interactive database of all things purple and gold.

— Chuck Schilken