Dereck Lively II

Lively is a bit of a frustrating player, as his defense was so much fun to watch.  He seemed comfortable, purposeful, and has great awareness on defense.  However, Lively’s offense was difficult to watch and it’s hard to see much of a role for him offensively early in his career.

Let me be blunt, even at the college level, Lively was not a very good offensive player, despite playing in a Duke team where he was surrounded by talent and theoretically, should have had an easy role screening, dunking, grabbing offensive rebounds, and wreaking havoc playing to his strengths, while not needing to do anything beyond his comfort level.  Unfortunately, Lively just doesn’t seem comfortable on the offensive end.  Right now, Lively’s best skill is moving back and forth between dunker spots and getting ready to… well dunk the ball.  However, even here there are some issues.  Lively has a number of plays where he catches the ball and seems like he needs that extra split second to orient himself to where the basket is and then he has to gather and jump, which lets the defense catch up.  When he rushed, he picked up a few traveling calls or rushed his shot.  Compounding this is that neither his hands nor his touch are great.  Lively has some great highlights where he catches passes and his quick leaping leads to an easy dunk.  But he also has too many plays where he bobbles passes and offensive rebounds and then misses bunnies or relatively easy tips inside.  Now, an optimist, will notice that Lively is pretty fluid and has long arms and springy jumping ability, so the tools are there to improve and become a good inside finisher.  He just isn’t at the moment.  Ok, so besides finishing, Lively doesn’t offer a lot else.  He has a high center of gravity and like a lot of freshmen big men, needs to add strength, so he isn’t very effectively trying to back opposing big men or even wings down.  And when he does post, his eventual shots, are mostly… adventurous, but not especially accurate.  He won’t be posting up in the NBA anytime soon.  In theory, he should be a good screen and roll target.  But he isn’t a very good screener.  He slips a lot of screens without making any contact and when he does, he tends to hunch over, and chips the player a bit before rolling, so he really doesn’t help his P&R partner much.  Ironically, he does pick up a fair amount of illegal screen calls, so this is an area he will definitely need some coaching to grow.  He is a big target and speedy enough that he can help as a roll man, but again, the hands can be an issue and if he runs into congestion at the rim, he doesn’t yet have the strength to power through.  Ok, so it isn’t all doom and gloom, Lively does have two good skills to build on.  First, he’s a good offensive rebounder. On the one hand, yes, his numbers are a bit “inflated” by the fact he’s basically lives around the hoop; however, he is also very active and shows a lot of energy pursuing boards and is willing to bang and sacrifice his body.  Additionally, he is a willing and ok passer.  He really doesn’t turn the ball over much on passes and shows some promise making good decisions and throwing a few nice passes from the high post; whether off the catch, offensive rebound, or short roll.  What he can’t do in those situations is dribble.  Anything beyond a single bounce to orient himself and the likelihood of a turnover increases significantly.

I realize after that paragraph, you maybe wondering why Lively is being discussed as a potential lottery (or even first round) pick.  It’s the defense.  Lively is a completely different player on the defensive side of the ball.  He is extremely active with a non-stop motor.  He is nimble and channels the previously mentioned fluidity and long arms into not only a high volume of blocks, but just contesting a lot of shots in the paint even at odd angles where he is able to contort his body.  He’s a fantastic weakside helper, who shows really good awareness and pursuit, moving quickly to cover ground and using his quick leaping ability to provide help inside.  Many of these traits translate to the perimeter as well.  Lively has good speed, versatility, and awareness that allows him to crossmatch and makes him extremely versatile in P&R situations, where he can hedge, blitz, drop, or switch depending on the situation and opposition’s personnel.  When matched up with a guard or wing, Lively has good lateral speed and has a strong ability to change direction plus  good speed, length, and quick jumping ability that allow him to stay with countermoves and recover to contest a shot in the lane even when a driver gets a step or two on him.  Now, to be clear, he these traits are great for a center, but he can still be beaten by some of the quicker guards who simply have too much speed.  Lively is also a good help defender, who will contest shots at both levels and who has solid defensive awareness.  You can see him pointing and communicating with teammates and generally making good decisions.  *This awareness and versatility allowed him to excel in both man and zone defensive schemes.  Lively is also a good defensive rebounder who boxes out and pursues the ball with his speed and length; however, he does stop the ball a bit as he needs to turn and find a teammate to get up the court.  He’s not a grab and go threat or someone who has shown the ability to look up the court and fire a dime to a streaking player.  Now, he does a few other weaknesses or at least nits of mine.  While Lively rotates and helps well, he does get caught watching the ball and can lose his man at times.  He guarded a number of paint bound big men, so he wasn’t really punished for this in college, but he’ll need to find a better balance of pursuit versus recovery in the NBA.  Additionally, he does have a higher center of gravity and can be backed down in the post, knocked back by strong drivers going into his chest, and he doesn’t always get down into a stance, relying on his strong change of direction ability, which worked in college, but could be more of a challeng ein the NBA.