Mavs learning just how important Dereck Lively II is to their success

The Spurs and their fans are wild about Wemby. In OKC, Thunder Nation cheers for Chet.

The Dallas Mavericks, meanwhile, love their Lively.

Two rookie centers have lit up the NBA this season with their skills, their preternatural acumen (think “basketball IQ”), resiliency bordering on toughness and versatility that earns both a label as “not your typical 7-footer.”

Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren have ranked 1-2 in the Rookie of the Year race all season. A few rungs down NBA.com’s Kia Rookie Ladder, though, Dallas’ Dereck Lively II has held firm, third-best among the new young bigs but as perfect a fit with the Mavericks as the other two are with their teams.

Showing up last fall for pickup games in advance of training camp, at 7-foot-1, 230 pounds and still just 19 years old, Lively almost instantly impressed Dallas star guard Luka Doncic with his abilities to run the court, find open spaces and snag just about any pass thrown in his vicinity.

“It started in September when they met,” coach Jason Kidd said. “Luka found out very quickly that Lively can catch and finish. That was something he was looking for. I think the relationship started there. There was trust on Day 1, and whenever there’s trust between a quarterback and a receiver, it will only get better.”

It got even better in Game 1. Most eyes on Opening Night in San Antonio were on Wembanyama, but Lively opened a few, too. He scored 16 points with 10 rebounds, hitting 7-of-8 shots in 30 minutes to become the first rookie ever to put up at least 15 and 10 in his NBA debut while making at least 80% of his shots.

“I remember my first game – I was nervous,” Doncic gushed afterward. “He didn’t seem that nervous. He played [bleeping] amazing.”

The connection has only gotten stronger. No one has been at the receiving end of more Doncic assists this season than Lively, who has been responsible for 100. Seven of those came Monday in the 127-92 blowout of Chicago.

The rook is havin’ himself a season @DereckLively // #MFFL pic.twitter.com/8npGpVRerN

— Dallas Mavericks (@dallasmavs) March 12, 2024

The young center scored a season-best 22 points with seven rebounds, three assists, two steals and two blocks while missing only one of 12 shots and finishing +22 in 20 minutes off the Mavericks’ bench. Bundle those numbers and Lively was the first to hit them since Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon in his rookie season in 1984-85.

“Whenever Luka has two or three on him, just find open spaces and he’s going to get you the ball. It just comes down to our trust and chemistry,” Lively said.

“If they are trapping him, I know to either go a step in from the top of the key or right at the foul line,” Lively said. “If I’m open, that means two people have to come to me and I need to make a decision to go to the basket or [find] a corner wing. Or if someone comes to me early, that leaves the corner wide open and no one’s going to get out there.

“It’s just going out there and playing a game of chess,” Lively said. “If I’m going to do this, you’re going to do that, I’m going to do this. That’s how it goes.”

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‘Turn the game into a track meet’

Lively, a native of Philadelphia, is averaging 9.0 points, 7.0 rebounds and 1.5 blocks, while shooting 75.1%. He is averaging 24.4 minutes in 47 games, having missed 19 due to a mixed bag of injuries including an ankle sprain, back contusion, nasal fracture and illness.

His value to Dallas’ attack is obvious: The Mavs are 28-19 when he plays, 10-9 when he doesn’t.

“That’s my guy,” Mavericks boss Mark Cuban said, walking down the hall at United Center halfway through Lively’s performance in Chicago.

Said Lively: “My teammates know, as soon as a rebound comes off, if we get it, I’m taking off. Or if there’s a turnover and we have a fast break, I’m taking off. … It’s either a dunk for me or it’s a kickout to one of my teammates.

“I just like to turn the game into a track meet because I can’t outmuscle anybody, we all know that,” Lively admitted. “But I can definitely get around people. I can outrun them. I have to be able to use my stamina and energy to get up and down as many times as I can.”

With recently acquired Daniel Gafford, Doncic has two swift and vertically blessed wideouts to run to the rim. The 6-foot-10 Gafford is on a streak of hot/selective shooting that has him on the brink of matching or passing the immortal Wilt Chamberlain for one measure of accuracy. Gafford missed his only shot against Philadelphia on March 3; since then, over five games, he has gone 33-of-33. That is just two short of Chamberlain’s NBA record set in 1967.

Gafford starts these days, Lively comes off the bench, and they give Dallas about 20 points, 14 boards and 3.5 blocks out of the center spot, making three-quarters of their shots.

Kidd, a Hall of Fame point guard with uncanny passing skill, recalls what it was like to have favorite targets like that.

“Anybody who could catch it and score,” he quipped Monday. “If you couldn’t catch it, you weren’t one of my favorites. You’re looking K-Mart [Kenyon Martin]. You’re looking Dirk [Nowitzki] – Dirk wasn’t one who was going to jump high and finish, but I knew if I got him the ball in the right spot, he could catch it. Then he had the hard part.”

Kidd said what Lively and Gafford do can be hard, too. “Luka sometimes is called a ‘late passer,’” the coach said. “Sometimes you’ll look and think he’s shooting, and you’ll still need to be ready because he’s strong enough to throw the late pass.”

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Dallas feels like home

There’s hard and then there’s difficult, and both have tested Lively. He was 7 years old in 2011 when his father died from a cocaine and heroin overdose. Three years later, his mother Kathy Drysdale was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and her eight-year battle with the cancer repeatedly got worse before it got better.

Lively missed a game last week for personal reasons, but the Mavericks beat Detroit, then closed ranks again upon his return. “When I first came back, it was just all love from everybody,” he said. “Everyone’s checking on me, everyone’s making sure I’m good, making sure my family’s good. Having a team like this, everyone cares about your well-being, is amazing.”

And to think, Lively initially wasn’t headed to Dallas at all. He was drafted by Oklahoma City with the 12th overall pick last June. Later that night, the Thunder swapped him for veteran Davis Bertans and guard Cason Wallace, the night’s 10th pick. Wallace has had a good first season, but it’s intriguing to think of Lively playing in tandem with or alongside Holmgren. OKC needs size, ranking 28th both offensively and defensively in rebound percentage.

In his first game against the Thunder on Dec. 2, Lively went for 20 points, 16 rebounds and seven blocks, hitting all nine of his shots in a Mavericks victory. He missed the teams’ next clash, so the one Thursday (10 ET, TNT/TruTV) will be Lively’s second against them.

“I thought I was going to OKC,” he told NBA.com. “I had accepted that. Then when I was walking around [that night], they told me I had been traded. Once they said ‘Dallas,’ there was a big ol’ smile on my face.”

Lively’s performances have been putting smiles on others’ faces ever since.

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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.

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