How Mavericks’ Dereck Lively II has summoned strength, poise after mother’s passing

The crowd’s roar. The adrenaline rush. Team camaraderie and will. His late mother’s spirit. For a few hours those stimulants exhilarate Dereck Lively II, temporarily numbing his pain and filling the hole in his heart.

Playoff victory after playoff victory, now spanning a month.

Win or lose and awaiting after home games, though, is the silent emptiness of the apartment he shared with his mom, Kathy Drysdale, until her passing nine days before the playoffs began.

“Man, it’s been rough,” he says.

While Mavericks fans marvel about his play and mettle and wonder how he’ll fare against Minnesota’s formidable frontcourt in the Western Conference finals, 20-year-old Lively is somewhat grateful that Games 1 and 2 are in Minneapolis.

It’s three hotel nights and 900 miles away from the Dallas apartment in which Kathy’s omnipresence is sometimes comforting, but at random moments anguishing.

There’s the furniture she picked and arranged. The picture frames she bought. To reach his bedroom, Lively passes two hallways, one leading to the living room; the other to a place he generally avoids.

“Every time I walk past the hallway to my mom’s room,” he says, “there’s like a gust of cold air.”

It’s been seven months and 16 days since Lively’s NBA preseason debut a half a world away in Abu Dhabi against — would you believe it? — Minnesota and Rudy Gobert.

No offense to 7-1 Gobert, recently crowned NBA Defensive Player of the Year for the fourth time, but facing him doesn’t seem so daunting now.

Not to freshly anointed NBA All-Rookie second-teamer Lively, who is coming off a 12-point, 15-rebound performance in Dallas’ series-clinching Game 6 victory over Oklahoma City — and aptly is the sole playoff survivor among the 10 all-rookie first- and second-teamers.

Not to the young man who, at age 7, lost his father and namesake to an overdose after years of cocaine and heroin addiction. Not to the now 7-1, 234-pounder who at age 10 experienced his mother getting diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, fought alongside her for a decade and until a few months ago thought she was in remission.

“It’s like opening a wound that I’d spent 13 years closing,” he says. “Since I lost my father, my biggest fear in life was losing my mother.

“You know, when your biggest fear happens, you’re stuck with a hole in your heart. It’s like you think you’ve got to do something to fill that hole, but you really can’t because nothing will fill it.”

The NBA’s final four of Dallas-Minnesota and Boston-Indiana is abundant with compelling storylines. The clash of young superstars Luka Doncic and Anthony Edwards. Kyrie Irving’s return to the conference finals after a seven-year absence.

A possible Jason Kidd vs. Rick Carlisle or Irving-returns-to-Boston Finals?

Dereck Lively II is a narrative unto himself, the mere sight of him on the court in jersey No. 2 evoking powerful, contradictory thoughts. Youthful playoff euphoria and profound loss. Remarkable and unfathomable. Inspiring and heart-wrenching.

“I always try to remind him, ‘Keep your head up and keep working,’ ” fellow Mavericks center Daniel Gafford says. “Because every day is not promised. The ball can always stop bouncing sooner or later.

“He’s been through a lot of stuff. Just trying to be there for him and keep him motivated is something that everybody on the team wants to do. Keep him encouraged. Keep him coming out, night in and night out and dominating.”

No greater testament

He became a Maverick 334 days ago , when upon being picked 12th overall in the NBA draft he was traded from Oklahoma City to Dallas.

Upon hearing his name called by commissioner Adam Silver on that June 22 night in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, Lively stood and beamed at Kathy as she, too, rose.

“I ain’t gonna cry, but I’m shakin’, ma’.”

They embraced.

“I love you, mom.”

“I love you, baby.”

Moments later, after Dereck walked onto the stage and shook Silver’s hand, Kathy tried to collect and share her thoughts to the ABC TV audience.

“I’m so emotional, I don’t know what I should do right now. I’m so proud of everything that he’s been through, and to persevere through everything and work hard, and to know what he wants to do. I mean, I’m honored to be his mother.”

Mavericks fans quickly learned snippets of Lively’s backstory, beyond his lone season at Duke, including that he’d used his Name Image and Likeness money to buy a headstone for his father and a house for former Penn State basketball standout Kathy, who at the time worked as a Nittany Lion women’s sports marketing manager.

Weeks after the draft, Kathy moved into the apartment she helped pick for Dereck, neither realizing that he would start 55 games as a rookie while she became a fixture at home games and team functions.

Looking back now, Lively says the season is a blur. The opener in San Antonio, where he outplayed Victor Wembanyama. Injuring his back in Los Angeles on Thanksgiving eve. Missing nine games in December and January with a sprained ankle.

He figures he hit the proverbial rookie wall in January, shortly before he fractured his nose and missed seven more games. On his 20th birthday, Feb. 12, he was serenaded with “Happy Birthday,” by AAC fans, including Kathy.

On March 9, however, Lively missed a game in Detroit for personal reasons as Kathy’s health suddenly declined. In early April, Kathy’s doctors told Dereck that it would be a good idea to summon family members to say goodbyes.

“The doctor that said 24 hours? My mom made it damn-near 84 hours,” Lively recalls. “Stubborn as hell. Stubborn until her last breath.”

Lively had sprained his right knee in Houston on March 31 and would miss the regular season’s last eight games. On April 12, the morning of the season’s next-to-last game and mere hours before Kathy’s passing, Lively asked to speak to teammates and coaches after shootaround.

“I’m all over the place,” he recalls saying that morning. “I might not seem myself right now. My mom is not doing too well. But whenever I’m here, I’m giving my all to you guys. You guys are really all I’ve got.”

Of his many remarkable rookie-season moments, none come close to that April 12 night, when less than two hours after announcing Kathy’s passing on Instagram he donned Mavericks jersey No. 42 – Kathy’s Penn State number – with “Drysdale” on the back while cheering his teammates against Detroit.

How, at 20, has he summoned the strength to so publicly share his grief? He says it’s because he can think of no greater testament to Kathy than to compete, and cope, with as much heart as he can muster.

He says he’s thankful to the Mavericks organization and Dallas for the outpouring he’s felt throughout this playoff run.

“I haven’t really been able to focus on what’s been going on in my life because I’ve been so focused on the basketball,” he says. “I really haven’t had a second to sit down and breathe. I haven’t had a second to kind of digest what’s been going on.

“I feel like it hits me in waves. One day I can get up and be fine. Another day I’ll wake up and it’s like, ‘S---, I can’t even get out of bed.’ "

Mother’s Day

On May 11, late in the Mavericks’ four-point Game 3 home victory over Oklahoma City, the Thunder tested Lively by repeatedly fouling him on purpose.

He missed three of his first four free throws. Then, as he later he explained, he heard Kathy’s voice saying “Make the damn free throws.”

He did, making his next four attempts.

He left American Airlines Center, however, not realizing it was Mother’s Day eve.

“The next day, multiple people came up to me and were like, ‘I’m sorry.’ I’m like, ‘For what?’ They were like, ‘It’s Mother’s Day.’ "

Lively says he surrounded himself with family and friends, including two cousins who live in Dallas. Since Kathy’s passing, relatives from around the country have taken turns visiting, to help him mourn.

On Mother’s Day, Lively thought about the many times he’d commemorated the day by taking Kathy to dinner and buying her balloons.

This time he bought a solitary purple balloon with the words “Happy Mother’s Day.” He stepped onto his apartment balcony.

“I love you, Mom,” he said, releasing the balloon. He says that as he watched it rise, he could hear Kathy’s voice in his mind replying, “Love you, too, Love Bug.”

“I watched to see how high it could go, until it was out of sight.”

Lively’s steadily improving play during his first postseason — averages of 7.7 points, 7.8 rebounds and 1.2 blocks against the Thunder — have made it easy to forget that he not only lost Kathy, but entered the postseason having not played in three weeks.

As close as he feels to teammates, he says the person in the Mavericks organization who has helped most is part-time coach Tyson Chandler, the starting center on Dallas’ 2011 NBA title team.

At 41, Chandler is more than twice Lively’s age, but they have much in common, with the same height and physique and both having been drafted at 19.

“Just being able to talk,” Lively says. “Because it’s real hard to sit here and have a conversation about a topic like this with somebody without both y’all breaking down and crying. Because it’s such a vulnerable state that you’re in.

“As men, it’s hard because we’re not taught to be vulnerable. We’re not taught to talk about what we’re going through. We’re just taught to deal with it and to move on. But in this position, it’s something that I haven’t been able to move on from.”

Lively the NBA player has taken significant steps throughout a rookie season of injury and tribulation, none bigger than the clinching one-point comeback victory over Oklahoma City — in which Dallas outscored the Thunder by 22 points during the 18:26 he played in the second half.

Afterward he looked and pointed skyward. No words necessary.

Privately, he recently took another profound step, in his apartment, through that gust of cold air he’d been avoiding.

“I had to go in and clean things out,” he says. “As her son, that’s one of the hardest things to do. You’ve got to go in there and take back the things that you’ve given to your mom.

“The clothes. The shoes. The jewelry. The perfume. Her hair products. You’ve got to sit there and be a man. And move on.

“So whenever I talk about putting one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward, that’s really a big testament to what I’ve been living with for a long time now.”

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