Sure, Derek Fisher played for the Lakers, the team Reggie Jackson associates with “bright lights,” as opposed to his “heart-of-the-city” Clippers.

But Fisher can appreciate what his one-time Oklahoma City teammate has going in L.A., because he too was embraced by a fan base in a big city far from home, beloved as an on-court catalyst and a star in his role alongside superstars.

“I’m glad Los Angeles has been as good for him as it has for me,” said Fisher, the Little Rock, Arkansas, native who won NBA five championships as a Laker and now is the coach and general manager of the WNBA’s Sparks.

“In terms of feeling like a second home, a place where you can establish yourself as a young professional athlete and have fans respect and appreciate what you’re doing. Reggie has had that experience in L.A., and I think that means a lot in a big city where there’s a lot of other things you could be doing. It’s helped his confidence, to feel the love he’s getting from fans in L.A.”

And they like him. They really, really like him.

“He’s our guy, he’s our voice, he’s a fan’s player,” said Paul Scheer, an actor and comedian who is one of the Clippers’ most public devotees, touting an allegiance since 2008.

To Shapan Debnath, a Clippers fan since Lamar Odom’s rookie season in 1999-2000, Jackson is “a Clipper legend, and as far as I’m concerned, he’s Clipper culture.”

With All-Stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George sidelined for all or most of the season, respectively, Jackson carried a large load. The 31-year-old point guard logged 2,337 minutes and averaged ​​16.8 points, both metrics the second-most of his 11-year career.

And the Clippers stuck stubbornly around .500, finishing eighth in the Western Conference standings to get into the play-in tournament – which continues with a win-or-go-home matchup Friday night against the New Orleans Pelicans at Crypto.com Arena.

Jackson makes it a point to enjoy all of it; during media availabilities this season, he’s used the word “appreciate” 57 times.

What he really appreciates about his connection to Clipper Nation, he said, is the through-thick-and-thin nature of it. Scheer describes it as an “agreement we all made” to accept Jackson’s misses along with his makes because those makes have so often given fans such reason to rejoice.

“A goal of mine has just been to be embraced, despite the results,” Jackson. “That’s what I love about this fan base – I know it took having some good results – but really through the ups and downs this year … they haven’t turned.

“That’s been the best part: We’ve been riding together.”

Jackson – who was born in Italy but also lived in England, North Dakota, George and Florida before settling in Colorado Springs – knows it wasn’t unconditional love at first sight.

When the Clippers signed him after he was waived by Detroit in 2019-20, some wondered where he’d fit on a team that already had guards Lou Williams, Patrick Beverley and Landry Shamet.

And then, in those ill-fated 2020 playoffs, it was Jackson over whom Luka Doncic hit his overtime buzzer-beater in Game 4 of the Clippers’ first-round series against Dallas. And in Round 2 against Denver, he played just 33 minutes and took only five shots as the Clippers blew a 3-1 series lead.

As Jackson wondered whether to even keep playing, Scheer can remember some fans’ opinion: “Get rid of him!”

Clippers center Ivica Zubac said even he initially had the wrong idea of Jackson – who had been tagged with a reputation as being selfish as he began his career on the star-studded Thunder.

“When we were getting him I always thought he’s not a good guy because I heard that,” Zubac said, chuckling. “When you get some kind of an image, it’s hard to get rid of. But he was the nicest dude, and I was like, ‘That’s not what I heard!’ But he was super-nice from Day 1. And not just to players, everyone.”

When Jackson returned last season on a one-year deal, it also gave Clippers fans an opportunity to get to know him better too – which, it turns out, is to love him.

For Cole Huff, fan and former professional hooper, it was Jackson’s reaction to a mental blunder – calling a timeout the Clippers didn’t have in a win against Miami – that won him over: “He darn near had a breakdown, it meant so much to him that he thought he was letting his team down. I was like, ‘Man, this guy. I have a soft spot for him. He really cares.’”

For Jamal Christopher, a fan for two decades, it was Jackson’s “Remember, no worries!” after the Clippers fell behind 0-2 to Dallas in the first round last postseason, a statement that didn’t seem incongruous, but reassuring.

“And then,” Christopher wrote, “he went out and performed the way he did.”

Jackson pulled any fans who might still have been on the fence about him into his camp with his contributions to the Clippers’ first Western Conference finals run, averaging 17.8 points while shooting 48.4% from the field (40.8% from 3-point range).

“When he stepped up in the playoffs and the crowd was chanting his name? That’s the end of ‘Rocky,’” said Scheer, whose 7-year-old son, Gus, is especially fond of Jackson, so that when he learned of the guard’s affinity for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, he also began requesting those – a snack that now is called a “Reggie Jackson” in the Scheer household.

This season, the team re-signed Jackson on a two-year, $22 million deal. And he has become, as Debnath put it, “this season’s definitive Clipper.”

He’s kept the Clippers afloat and fun to watch, skipping down the court with the ball in his hands before delivering a game-winner against the Lakers, dancing, always dancing, and regularly interrupting teammates’ postgame TV interviews to hoot, holler and hype them up.

“We just kind of let Reggie be Reggie,” Coach Tyronn Lue said. “When he’s in a good place, we’re normally in a good place.”

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And it’s all genuine, his teammates and he will tell you.

“You can’t have false positivity,” Jackson said. “You’ve got to be in the moment at times, because you’re gonna have bad moments.”

That includes Tuesday’s play-in opening loss in Minnesota, after which Jackson was typically cooperative even if it was easy to sense his ire bubbling underneath: “Just sucks to let this one slip through our fingers.”

But as Jackson sees it, his job is to help his teammates – and their fans – ride out those moments.

“My biggest contribution I wanted to bring to this team since I’ve come in is positivity,” he said. “Even back to last year’s playoffs, down 0-2, I just wanted to make sure I was lighthearted, make sure I stay positive, because me, I trust in our process, I trust in everything that we’ve done. I believe we’re gonna get the results that we want.”