When the The Dallas Mavericks traded in the 2023 NBA draft to acquire Derek Lively IIThey had no idea he would be as good as he was right away. They expected him to spend some time in the G-League as he developed, but his basket protection and threat as a lob receiver opened up the offense to Luka Doncic And Kyrie Irving.
Lively played 55 games as a rookie, missing a few games due to various injuries, but averaged 8.8 points per game, 6.9 rebounds per game, and 1.4 assists per game while playing just 23.5 minutes per game. That was enough to land on the All-Rookie Second Team. If it weren’t for the Thunder Chet Holmgren Having essentially had a “redshirt” year, missing his freshman year due to a foot injury, so his sophomore season became his rookie year, Lively would have been on the first team.
Last weekend, Lively brought assistant coach Sean Sweeney to Duke for “Pro Devils Weekend” to train and someone at Duke asked the rising star what he had been working on this summer.
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“I’m just trying to be more dominant in the paint,” Lively said. “Strength is definitely the number one priority; I’m working on my control. You know, everyone wants to see me shoot, but I want to dominate the paint before I can shoot three-pointers.”
Dereck Lively has shown improvement in his shooting, hitting a three-pointer in Game 4 of the NBA Finals against the Celtics, and increasing his free-throw percentage to 62.5 percent over the last three rounds of the playoffs after shooting 50.9 percent in the regular season. He knows, however, that his career will be defined by protecting the paint, as players like Holmgren and Victor Wembanyama are expected to play in the same conference for years to come.
Lively is expected to be in contention for a starting role this year, but will still share minutes with Daniel Gaffordthat the Mavs acquired at last season’s trade deadline. Gafford was instrumental in turning the Mavericks into a defensive monster late in the regular season, but Lively had the team’s best offensive and defensive ratings in the playoffs. The two will continue to be a perfect rotation for Doncic and Irving to throw lobs both ways.
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