Dereck Lively II Articles - Page 6

The Dallas Mavericks (10-5) have not fixed all their problems over night, but they are definitely a more balanced squad than the one who fell apart in the second half of last season. Rookie Dereck Lively II is a big reason why, as he is quickly becoming the defensive anchor for the Mavs. So you […]

Though the Dallas Mavericks have cooled off a bit following a scorching 8-2 start to the regular season, they have a lot to be excited about this 2023-24 NBA season. The roster that GM Nico Harrison constructed during the offseason fits better with Luka Doncic and their strong start reflects that. Nonetheless, the Mavericks could […]

The Dallas Mavericks were able to hold off the Los Angeles Lakers’ strong comeback charge on Wednesday night, hanging on for the victory after taking a 20-point lead heading into the fourth quarter thanks to some heroics from Kyrie Irving and some crunch-time gaffes from LeBron James. This saved the Mavs from a world of […]

The Dallas Mavericks were on a roll for the first three quarters of their Wednesday night contest against the Los Angeles Lakers. However, that didn’t come without its fair share of heart-in-your-mouth moments, with the Mavs’ prized rookie Dereck Lively II exiting the game prematurely after suffering a concerning back injury. With around seven minutes […]

The Dallas Mavericks have been one of the best teams in the NBA to start the 2023-24 season. They’re currently 8-3 and in third place in the Western Conference. Last season, they missed the playoffs after trading for Kyrie Irving, but getting that lottery pick was a blessing in disguise for them. That enabled the […]

Aside from talk surrounding MVP rankings and who the best player in the NBA is, the conversations surrounding the league’s rookie class always pick up after the first month of the regular season. Hey, what do you know, we are just about a month into the 2023-24 season, which means it’s time to take a […]

The Dallas Mavericks have begun the 2023-24 season on a high note. Luka Doncic is playing at an elite level, Kyrie Irving has stepped up in recent action, and the entire roster is displaying signs of promise. One specific player, rookie Dereck Lively, has been especially important to the Mavs so far. One of the […]

The Dallas Mavericks have started the 2023-24 NBA season on a high note. Following their forgettable 2022-23 campaign, it is clear that Dallas features the potential to compete. But what has the Mavs’ biggest disappointment been so far in 2023-24? Kyrie Irving hasn’t exactly shot the lights out up to this point. He is still […]

The Dallas Mavericks are starting to backslide after coming off a blazing start to the season. Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving did all they could but still could not close out Pascal Siakam’s Toronto Raptors. A lot of the battle was lost by the Mavs through rebounding. Their frontcourt looked thin without Dereck Lively II […]

The Dallas Mavericks are off to their best start since the 2004-05 season. With just one loss in seven games, they only trail the defending champion Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference standings through the first two weeks of the 2023-24 NBA season. The Mavs have been clicking on all cylinders to begin the campaign. […]

Dallas Mavericks rookie Dereck Lively II continues to impress. In the Mavs’ 114-105 win over the Chicago Bulls, Lively put up a unique stat line for a rookie; 7 points, 13 rebounds (7 offensive), 6 assists, and 2 steals. In fact, that stat line is so rare that Lively is the first rookie to achieve […]

There was much consternation among fans of the Dallas Mavericks when Jason Kidd and company opted to roll with Maxi Kleber over Dereck Lively II as the team’s starting center during their season-opener against the San Antonio Spurs. However, Lively quickly showed that he’s such an athletic presence in the paint, passing the eye test […]

Dereck Lively II made the Dallas Mavericks’ front office look good Wednesday night. The rookie center, who landed with the Mavs via a draft day trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder last July, shined in his NBA debut against the San Antonio Spurs, even outplaying Victor Wembanyama in Dallas’ 126-119 win. “It was a lot […]

On Wednesday night, millions of fans around the world anticipated the debut of a young big man who’s bound to take over the league by storm and transform a certain NBA team from Texas after a disappointing 2022-23 season. Little did everyone know that they were going to tune into the Dereck Lively II show […]

The rookie who shined the most in the encounter between the Dallas Mavericks and the San Antonio Spurs was not Victor Wembanyama. Rather, it’s the Mavs’ first-year big man Dereck Lively II, who played a huge role in Dallas’ season-opening 126-119 win on the road over Wemby and the Spurs Wednesday night. So good was […]

The 2023-24 NBA season is just right around the corner. That means it’s time for fantasy basketball managers to start preparing for their respective drafts. Most managers will place their focus on targeting star players like Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid, Luka Doncic, or Giannis Antetokounmpo who put up gaudy stat lines for their teams every […]

Tyson Chandler was an integral part of the Dallas Mavericks’ title run in 2011. His style of dominating the paint and grabbing boards stood out to every NBA who watched LeBron James’ Miami Heat crumble before their very eyes. One of those few spectators was Tim Hardaway Jr. and he posits that a similar dominant […]

The Dallas Mavericks are looking to put a nightmare 2022-23 season behind them. To that end, they have made adding capable rebounders and interior defenders a priority, whether it’s via trade, via draft, or via free agency. One such player that should help improve their soft defense in the coming seasons is rookie big man […]

Dereck Lively II and the Dallas Mavs are now done with 2023 NBA Summer League, and we’ve learned some things. The former Duke big man showed off many of the skills that made him the No. 12 pick in the NBA Draft. However, he also showed his biggest weakness when it comes to setting screens, […]

The Dallas Mavericks emerged as one of the biggest winners of the 2023 NBA Draft. They managed to turn the 10th pick into Dereck Lively II, Richaun Holmes, and Olivier Maxence-Prosper, with the three injecting some much-needed athleticism and defense into a Mavs team that hemorrhaged points to end the 2022-23 season. And now, it […]

NBA Summer League is underway, which means the Dallas Mavericks No. 12 overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, Duke center Dereck Lively II, made his Mavs debut in Las Vegas. Dallas took on the Oklahoma City Thunder and lost 91-80, but that doesn’t tell the tale of Lively’s first impressions. To do that, here […]

The Dallas Mavericks tanked the end of their season in the hopes of keeping their first-round pick (top-10 protected) from the New York Knicks. They accomplished the goal and ultimately walked away with two Mavs draft picks — Duke’s Dereck Lively II and Marquette’s Olivier-Maxence Prosper — in the 2023 NBA Draft. And of those, […]

The Dallas Mavericks are looking to rebound from a disappointing close to a promising 2023 campaign, and rookie Dereck Lively II is excited to get to work with his new teammate Luka Doncic. “It’s definitely going to get scary when I set a good pick and he gets down the lane,” Lively II told Callie […]

Previous NBA players try to make assessing rookies easier by comparing them to legends that came before them. This year’s NBA Draft is no different for Jason Kidd’s Dallas Mavericks as Dereck Lively II got his fair share of comparisons. The most prominent of which was when Michael Finley compared the Duke basketball center to […]

The Dallas Mavericks entered the 2023 NBA Draft with just the No. 10 overall pick. But they left Thursday night with a lot more than that. The Mavericks had a busy evening on June 22, making several moves that landed them two rookies in Dereck Lively II and Olivier-Maxence Prosper. Dallas traded that 10th pick […]

The Dallas Mavericks came into the 2023 NBA Draft with the expectation of parting ways with their No. 10 overall pick. Ultimately, the Mavs greenlighted the deal, opting to move down in the draft by swapping their pick with the Oklahoma City Thunder’s No. 12 pick. In the end, Dallas got their man in Dereck […]

The Dallas Mavericks have set their sights on a redemptive campaign in the 2023-2024 NBA season. That’s after a disappointing finish in the previous season that left them out of the playoffs. With limited assets at their disposal, the Mavericks had to make strategic moves during the 2023 NBA Draft to bolster their roster. Let’s […]

The Dallas Mavericks dug themselves a massive hole in how they constructed their roster, tried to climb out and somehow dug an even bigger one. Then, as desperation set in, owner Mark Cuban and company decided to dive fully into this crater and engage in tank mode at the end of the season. It will […]

Dallas Mavericks VP Michael Finley really likes their 2023 NBA Draft lottery pick Dereck Lively II, so much so he even has a comparison for the Duke standout that Luka Doncic and Mavs fans will love. The Mavs traded down to no. 12 in the draft to dump Davis Bertans’ contract, sending the no. 10 […]

One of the nation’s top recruits this past year, Dereck Lively II now finds himself as a lottery pick heading to the NBA after being selected 12th overall by the Dallas Mavericks in the 2023 NBA Draft. Many people pegged Lively to the Mavs at No. 10, but they wound up trading back two spots […]

Dereck Lively II, a 7’1″ big man from Duke University, is one of the more highly touted centers in the 2023 NBA Draft class. Lively II has scouts enamored, thanks to his tremendous defensive potential. He was arguably the best rim protector in the nation in his freshman year with the Blue Devils, as he […]

Duke center Dereck Lively worked out for the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday ahead of the 2023 NBA Draft. At 7-foot-1 with a 7-foot-7 wingspan, the 19-year-old is among the top rim protectors in this year’s draft class, averaging 2.4 blocks in just 20.6 minutes per game during his freshman season. Lively has frequently been mocked […]

The NBA Draft is Thursday and while many of the players who will be going in the top picks seem to be a foregone conclusion, there are still going to be sleepers in the Top 10. It is now time to continue our NBA Draft odds series with a sleepers to be drafted in the […]

Heading into the 2022-23 NBA season, folks had high expectations for the New Orleans Pelicans. After all, the Pelicans were fresh off of the franchise’s first postseason appearance since the 2017-18 season and took the one-seeded Phoenix Suns to six games as the eighth seed in the West. But fast forward to the current day, […]

After making it all the way to the Western Conference Finals the year prior, folks had high expectations for the Dallas Mavericks heading into the 2022-23 season. But fast forward to the current day, and it’s clear that the Mavs fell short of expectations. The Mavericks’ 2022-23 campaign was nothing short of a disaster. Despite […]

There’s no denying the Golden State Warriors need to add more size and athleticism up front this summer. Their means of signing an impact big man extremely limited by luxury tax complications, could the Dubs instead find that type of player by trading up in the 2023 NBA Draft? The latest intel suggests Mike Dunleavy […]

The Houston Rockets have found themselves in the free agency hotbed as they are reportedly targeting big names such as James Harden and Kyrie Irving. This is obviously the news that keeps Rockets fans up at night. But the team has other concerns to address this offseason. An important one is the 2023 NBA Draft, […]

The Utah Jazz are in uncharted waters. For the first time since 2016, the Jazz have a lottery pick in the NBA Draft. Specifically, they own the ninth overall pick. And on top of their top-ten pick, the Jazz have two more first-round picks in the 2023 NBA Draft, one at pick 28 and, most […]

With the 2023 NBA Draft set to take place next week, many teams around the league are still attempting to figure out what this offseason will look like. The idea of certain teams being “buyers” while others turn into “sellers” is still not clear, and the direction of this NBA offseason could very well be […]