In Year II, the goal is domination
Former Blue Devil Dereck Lively turned out to be one of the bigger surprises last in last year’s NBA Draft. He won a lot of praise and admiration from his Dallas teammates and has established himself as a rising star and someone the Mavericks can build around.
So what can we expect in Year II?
Well it looks like more good stuff from the 7-1 Lively. He’s focused on improving from the lane out, which makes sense. Here’s what he told The Smoking Cuban:
“I’m working on this all offseason, I’m just trying to be more dominant when it comes to the paint. Everyone wants to see me shoot, but i want to own the paint before i can shoot threes. I got some great teammates who can hit down shots, so i got to be able to conquer and control the paint.”
He had a great attitude at Duke and sounds like that is still a major part of his makeup with the Mavs.
Keep in mind that as good as he’s been, and as much promise as he’s shown, Lively is still physically not mature. Currently he’s listed at 230 and he could probably carry 250 without any trouble. At that point, given his bounciness and smarts, he probably could control the paint pretty thoroughly.
