dukeboy911
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Definitely doesn’t seem like your typical Duke big man recruit. Good mobility and coordination for how tall he is. Maybe we won’t fade into oblivion post K. Lord knows I’m ready for a fresh type of coaching philosophy.
rome8180
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I'm not sure which part of this video I liked the most. The floor-running, the pick-and-pop flashes, the verticality on defense, the couple really high-level passes, his hands, or his understanding of where to stand on offense. I'm an idiot for being on the fence about wanting him.
dukebluedevils05
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He's so fluid and agile. And the mechanics on his shot look super sustainable to my eyes. If he can legitimately work on getting great, meaningful reps, I imagine his efficiency numbers should start to reflect that.
With the right system in place, he has the chance to be dynamite IMO. Not necessarily with his raw numbers, but his impact on the game will stand out.
With the right system in place, he has the chance to be dynamite IMO. Not necessarily with his raw numbers, but his impact on the game will stand out.
rome8180
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A mother's fight, a son's love: How Dereck Lively became the player and young man every school wanted — and Duke got
Lively, the No. 2 prospect in the Class of 2022, lost his father when he was 7 and has helped his mom through her fight with cancer.
theathletic.com
rome8180
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WEST CHESTER, Pa. — With the sunlight fading into the early fall evening, Dereck Lively stepped outside of the athletic center at Westtown School and announced his decision to play at Duke. His mother, Kathy Drysdale, stood by his side.
Broadcast on ESPN, these decisions are the very public dog and pony show of recruiting, igniting message boards and inspiring analysts both in full throat. By choosing the Blue Devils, Lively, the No. 2 player in the Class of 2022 according to the 247Sports Composite, now serves as the official stamp of approval on Jon Scheyer as successor to Mike Krzyzewski.
Behind the scenes, though, there is something much more intimate and real going on. Two hours before he made his announcement, Lively and his mother sat down in the small team room to discuss how they got here, to the moment of a high school senior choosing his college and his mother’s steadying hand in guiding him there.
The two sound more like an old married couple than mother and son, not so much finishing each other’s sentences as interrupting them with corrections, eye rolls and friendly goading. Asked about the lessons his mother taught him in basketball, Lively starts to answer when Drysdale pipes up. “Go ahead, tell her. Tell her.’’ Lively leans back into the locker and shakes his head. “Pssh. She threw me out of practice. Or so she says. I don’t remember it.’’ This is how it goes, back and forth, for an hour, Drysdale nodding at Lively and puffing out her chest with a grin when he’s asked to describe her, and he leaning back and looking at her when it’s her turn, “OK, your turn.”
This could be a very sad story. Parts of it are devastatingly sad, unfair even. Dereck Lively Sr. died unexpectedly in January 2012, leaving behind a confused 7-year-old who couldn’t understand why the man he said was like a “superhero,’’ wasn’t around anymore.
Except Drysdale doesn’t do sad. She is a practical woman, forthright and no-nonsense. “I’m not a why person,’’ she says. “I’m a how do we handle it person.’’
She is also just one month removed from surgery to remove two lobes from her lungs, the latest in a now four-year battle with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She already has gone through chemo, radiation and stem cell transplant, and is currently undergoing immunotherapy. She rattles off her battles as if she’s reading a grocery list, dry-eyed and concise, her son nodding along as she explains. “He’s already a statistic, as the child of a single mother,’’ she says. “There is no way in hell he’s going to be an orphan.’’
This is their reality, how a boy became not only a great basketball player but one mature enough to navigate all that must be handled in today’s world of college basketball. “I always wanted him to be a kid,’’ Drysdale says. “Because he already had to grow up so fast.’’
Broadcast on ESPN, these decisions are the very public dog and pony show of recruiting, igniting message boards and inspiring analysts both in full throat. By choosing the Blue Devils, Lively, the No. 2 player in the Class of 2022 according to the 247Sports Composite, now serves as the official stamp of approval on Jon Scheyer as successor to Mike Krzyzewski.
Behind the scenes, though, there is something much more intimate and real going on. Two hours before he made his announcement, Lively and his mother sat down in the small team room to discuss how they got here, to the moment of a high school senior choosing his college and his mother’s steadying hand in guiding him there.
The two sound more like an old married couple than mother and son, not so much finishing each other’s sentences as interrupting them with corrections, eye rolls and friendly goading. Asked about the lessons his mother taught him in basketball, Lively starts to answer when Drysdale pipes up. “Go ahead, tell her. Tell her.’’ Lively leans back into the locker and shakes his head. “Pssh. She threw me out of practice. Or so she says. I don’t remember it.’’ This is how it goes, back and forth, for an hour, Drysdale nodding at Lively and puffing out her chest with a grin when he’s asked to describe her, and he leaning back and looking at her when it’s her turn, “OK, your turn.”
This could be a very sad story. Parts of it are devastatingly sad, unfair even. Dereck Lively Sr. died unexpectedly in January 2012, leaving behind a confused 7-year-old who couldn’t understand why the man he said was like a “superhero,’’ wasn’t around anymore.
Except Drysdale doesn’t do sad. She is a practical woman, forthright and no-nonsense. “I’m not a why person,’’ she says. “I’m a how do we handle it person.’’
She is also just one month removed from surgery to remove two lobes from her lungs, the latest in a now four-year battle with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She already has gone through chemo, radiation and stem cell transplant, and is currently undergoing immunotherapy. She rattles off her battles as if she’s reading a grocery list, dry-eyed and concise, her son nodding along as she explains. “He’s already a statistic, as the child of a single mother,’’ she says. “There is no way in hell he’s going to be an orphan.’’
This is their reality, how a boy became not only a great basketball player but one mature enough to navigate all that must be handled in today’s world of college basketball. “I always wanted him to be a kid,’’ Drysdale says. “Because he already had to grow up so fast.’’
rome8180
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Lively has the gift of great genetics. Drysdale grew up in Michigan, the daughter of a basketball coach and former player at Xavier. The family had a halfcourt on the property and Drysdale naturally gravitated to the sport. She wound up at Penn State, a 1,000-point scorer under Rene Portland’s first No. 1 ranked team, before parlaying that into a coaching career. His dad was a chef, but stood 6-foot-9.
Drysdale remembers telling her son that his father was gone, not so much the words but the gut in her stomach that the moment left. She worried about filling the void, of being both father and mother, but there’s no real handbook for such a thing. She just made do, relying on a village of friends to fill the voids that she couldn’t. Lively didn’t give her much grief, which made it easier, but there were days where she didn’t so much as breathe as she just made it through
When she was coaching grassroots ball, she’d pack up her son’s snacks, coloring books and favorite dinosaurs hoping it would keep him occupied, or leaning on the players’ parents to serve as de facto babysitters. In 2012, mother and son relocated to Bellefonte, just outside of State College, after Drysdale took a job at her alma mater as a director of marketing in the athletics department. She wanted her son to make friends, so she insisted Lively try a different sport in each season. He swam, played football, and grudgingly played basketball. “I didn’t really like it at first,’’ he says. “I didn’t want to play it at all.’’ But he assimilated well, and they found their rhythm.
Two years later, Drysdale received her diagnosis. “That’s when I had my, ‘Why God? Why me?’ moment,’’ Lively says. “That’s when it felt like my world fell apart.’’ Except his mother wouldn’t let it. Her stoic and sensible approach holding firm, she called on her support system to help make sure Lively’s life didn’t, in fact, fall apart. Schedules were made to make sure he got where he needed to get when he needed to get there, and friends shuttled her to and from chemo.
A floor-running big man, Dereck Lively was wanted by every college coach in the country. (Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
While Drysdale fought, Lively soared. By the sixth grade, he realized he was pretty good at this basketball thing and in the eighth grade, Drysdale sat him down, suggesting he attend high school outside of the area.
Lively was not a fan. “I didn’t want to move away from my friends, go to boarding school,’’ he says. “And my mother was sick. I wanted to stay home.’’ Drysdale didn’t offer a democracy, insisting she knew what was right, and promising that when it came time to pick a college, the decision would be all his. Lively enrolled at Westtown, about three hours from their home, playing for a team that has steadily attracted more and more talent under coach Seth Berger. It was not easy for either party. Drysdale bawled when she left, and Lively had to master the art of doing laundry, cleaning his room and making his own decisions.
It was the right call, though. Lively’s time at Westtown coupled with his experience on Philly’s Team Final elevated his game, and ultimately his stature among the recruiting experts. From “underappreciated and underestimated,’’ as Berger termed Lively’s early career, he blossomed into the second-best player in his class, recruited by a who’s who list of college programs.
Mother and son navigated the decision-making process together, Drysdale reminding her son it was his choice, and that he needed to make it for the right reasons. “This is a business,’’ she says. “But at the end of the day, it comes down to who are the guys you can play with for four years, and the coach you can play for? All of this other stuff, that doesn’t matter.’’ He could have lingered, milked it for all it was worth, but like his mother, he is far too practical for that. “All of these coaches calling at first, blowing smoke, it was great,’’ he says. “And then it got old. Like, why are they all saying this stuff about me anyway? I just wanted to be done with it.’’
As he talks, Drysdale nods along. She appreciates his thoughtfulness, the way he’s handled such a monumental and very public decision with such intelligence and care.
Drysdale remembers telling her son that his father was gone, not so much the words but the gut in her stomach that the moment left. She worried about filling the void, of being both father and mother, but there’s no real handbook for such a thing. She just made do, relying on a village of friends to fill the voids that she couldn’t. Lively didn’t give her much grief, which made it easier, but there were days where she didn’t so much as breathe as she just made it through
When she was coaching grassroots ball, she’d pack up her son’s snacks, coloring books and favorite dinosaurs hoping it would keep him occupied, or leaning on the players’ parents to serve as de facto babysitters. In 2012, mother and son relocated to Bellefonte, just outside of State College, after Drysdale took a job at her alma mater as a director of marketing in the athletics department. She wanted her son to make friends, so she insisted Lively try a different sport in each season. He swam, played football, and grudgingly played basketball. “I didn’t really like it at first,’’ he says. “I didn’t want to play it at all.’’ But he assimilated well, and they found their rhythm.
Two years later, Drysdale received her diagnosis. “That’s when I had my, ‘Why God? Why me?’ moment,’’ Lively says. “That’s when it felt like my world fell apart.’’ Except his mother wouldn’t let it. Her stoic and sensible approach holding firm, she called on her support system to help make sure Lively’s life didn’t, in fact, fall apart. Schedules were made to make sure he got where he needed to get when he needed to get there, and friends shuttled her to and from chemo.
A floor-running big man, Dereck Lively was wanted by every college coach in the country. (Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
While Drysdale fought, Lively soared. By the sixth grade, he realized he was pretty good at this basketball thing and in the eighth grade, Drysdale sat him down, suggesting he attend high school outside of the area.
Lively was not a fan. “I didn’t want to move away from my friends, go to boarding school,’’ he says. “And my mother was sick. I wanted to stay home.’’ Drysdale didn’t offer a democracy, insisting she knew what was right, and promising that when it came time to pick a college, the decision would be all his. Lively enrolled at Westtown, about three hours from their home, playing for a team that has steadily attracted more and more talent under coach Seth Berger. It was not easy for either party. Drysdale bawled when she left, and Lively had to master the art of doing laundry, cleaning his room and making his own decisions.
It was the right call, though. Lively’s time at Westtown coupled with his experience on Philly’s Team Final elevated his game, and ultimately his stature among the recruiting experts. From “underappreciated and underestimated,’’ as Berger termed Lively’s early career, he blossomed into the second-best player in his class, recruited by a who’s who list of college programs.
Mother and son navigated the decision-making process together, Drysdale reminding her son it was his choice, and that he needed to make it for the right reasons. “This is a business,’’ she says. “But at the end of the day, it comes down to who are the guys you can play with for four years, and the coach you can play for? All of this other stuff, that doesn’t matter.’’ He could have lingered, milked it for all it was worth, but like his mother, he is far too practical for that. “All of these coaches calling at first, blowing smoke, it was great,’’ he says. “And then it got old. Like, why are they all saying this stuff about me anyway? I just wanted to be done with it.’’
As he talks, Drysdale nods along. She appreciates his thoughtfulness, the way he’s handled such a monumental and very public decision with such intelligence and care.
rome8180
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Two hours later, Drysdale walks out of the gym to the small gathering for Lively’s announcement. Students gather in folding chairs, some chatting about Lively’s future. “Dude, he’s gonna make so much money now with the new NCAA stuff,’’ one says to another
As they sit down at the table set up just outside of a flower bed, Drysdale says to her semi-famous, soon to be a big deal son, “Don’t fall. I could just see you doing that.’’ She is not at the moment cancer-free, or even in remission. The latest surgery required more aggressive procedures than the doctors anticipated. Radiation essentially burned the lobes on her lungs, but they also found a cancerous cavity. They’ll need another scan in October, after she heals, to see where she stands.
In Durham, on the Duke message boards and Twitter and no doubt in the Duke basketball offices, there is no doubt much celebration. Scheyer now has three players in the top eight, a decided sign that the Blue Devils are not exactly about to drop off the Earth.
Behind the scenes, after the show ends, Kathy Drysdale and Dereck Lively spend a good 20 minutes posing for pictures and meeting with friends. Lively wears his Duke shirt and hat proudly. “I have good days and bad days,’’ she says of her health. “This is a good day.’’
As they sit down at the table set up just outside of a flower bed, Drysdale says to her semi-famous, soon to be a big deal son, “Don’t fall. I could just see you doing that.’’ She is not at the moment cancer-free, or even in remission. The latest surgery required more aggressive procedures than the doctors anticipated. Radiation essentially burned the lobes on her lungs, but they also found a cancerous cavity. They’ll need another scan in October, after she heals, to see where she stands.
In Durham, on the Duke message boards and Twitter and no doubt in the Duke basketball offices, there is no doubt much celebration. Scheyer now has three players in the top eight, a decided sign that the Blue Devils are not exactly about to drop off the Earth.
Behind the scenes, after the show ends, Kathy Drysdale and Dereck Lively spend a good 20 minutes posing for pictures and meeting with friends. Lively wears his Duke shirt and hat proudly. “I have good days and bad days,’’ she says of her health. “This is a good day.’’
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Anthony Davis block percentage at Kentucky was 13.7%, so Lively should have slightly less defensive impact.
childress22
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How can we make him the most Mobley?
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Anyone else impressed by how well this young man speaks?
childress22
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I feel like over half the class is like this. I've enjoyed every bit of hearing Dereck, Flip, and Dariq talking hoops. They all seem above average in their introspection/approach to the game and don't speak just in clichés.
deeyoukayeee
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It is going to be heartbreaking to see a team with the two best rebounding big men in the class, a freakishly athletic rebounding four and the best rebounding wing to suck at rebounding next year. It will take Lively 5-6 games to notch 25 caroms at Duke.