LOS ANGELES – Some 15 games into his rookie season, and center Dereck Lively II was making some marked improvements to
his game and was showing folks he could possibly be a threat in the middle of the paint for the Mavericks for a very long time.
Then, less than five minutes into the second half of Wednesday’s wild 104-101 triumph over the Los Angeles Lakers, Lively skied high and took an unfortunate spill and landed hard on the Crypto.com Arena floor. As he was writhing in pain, play continued at the other end of the court until the Mavs could get a timeout.
When Lively’s teammates and members of the Mavs’ coaching and support staff gathered around him, it was clear that this was a painful situation for the 7-1 pivotman. So much so that Lively could barely put any pressure on his feet and had to be helped to the locker room by two of his teammates, and was later diagnosed as having a lower back contusion.
“I didn’t see the fall,” coach Jason Kidd said. “I would say (because it was painful to put pressure on his feet this was) probably why he was struggling to walk.”
Before he was injured, Lively had two points, three assists and 10 rebounds in just 19 very productive minutes. He was making matters rather complicated for Lakers center Anthony Davis – a future first ballot Hall of Fame player who wound up with just 10 points on 4-of-10 shots in 36 minutes.
Lively, though, has experienced much more pain in his young 19-year old life than what happened against the Lakers.
In January of 2012 when he was just seven years old, Lively father died after overdosing on heroin. Later on, Lively’s mother began an eight-year battle with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Kidd knows Lively had a different type of childhood that constantly dealt with real life issues. But he withstood the test of time, played one year of college basketball at Duke and became the 12th overall pick of this past summer’s NBA Draft.
“When you talk about Lively’s maturity as a 19-year old — not just as a basketball player — but as a person, he had to go through some stuff when you talk about taking care of his mom,” Kidd said. “He had to grow up fast.
“When you talk about paying the bills, the responsibility of real life. You can see that the carry over on the court is extremely high, and then you add the care factor. He wants to win. It’s all about winning, and
that’s who he is and we’re lucky to have him as part of the Mavs family.”
Lively has been a good fit into Kidd’s system so far. He has caught on quickly to life down in the NBA trenches, and the future certainly looks bright.
“He’s getting comfortable, and then we’re asking him to play-make,” Kidd said. “Understanding when you have guys like Luka (Doncic) and (Kyrie Irving), they’re going to get double-teamed and a lot of times the first pass is to Lively. His ability to pass and his basketball IQ is extremely high.
“He’s doing an incredible job for us here early in the season. But again, he also gave us some offensive rebounds here (Wednesday) that kept our offense going. Again, rim running. He puts a lot of pressure on the defense, and he causes a problem.”
Lively is known for playing extremely hard and for being one of the first players on the floor diving for loose balls. He already has five double-digit rebounding games, and three other games where he collected nine rebounds.
“He’s a hard-playing guy,” Mavs guard Josh Green said. “He had (a game-high four) offensive rebounds (Wednesday), which helped us a lot.
“Obviously him being on the floor, it’s unfortunate. But we have a great training staff and he works super hard and he cares about basketball and I think he’ll be good.”
X: @DwainPrice
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