A broken nose will prevent Dereck Lively II from playing Monday in his home city of Philadelphia, according to Eddie Sefko of Mavs.com. Instead of traveling with his teammates, the Mavericks’ rookie center will remain in Dallas to undergo a nasal procedure to ease the pain from the break. Lively tried out a face mask at Friday’s practice in hopes of playing tonight, but he didn’t enjoy the experience.
“Playing with the mask, I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy,” he said, “but you got to be able to go through the highs and lows and work through it. Today, I gave it a shot on being able to wear the mask and adjust it and feel like how it’s going to be on the court. We’re still trying to figure out what I’m going to be doing moving forward. But … I will be having a procedure on Monday to reset my nose since it is broken.”
Injuries are the only thing that have slowed down Lively, who is averaging 9.2 points, 7.9 rebounds and 1.4 blocks in 36 games. He was one of 11 rookies selected this week to participate in the Rising Stars event at All-Star Weekend.
“To be given this chance is amazing,” Lively said. “At the beginning of the season, if you told me I’d be able to get this far – no way, I wouldn’t have imagined it. So just being able to know I’m going to this game, I’m excited to be part of the atmosphere and getting to know everybody.”
There’s more from Dallas:
- Maxi Kleber also suffered a broken nose this week, with his injury occurring on Wednesday at Minnesota, Sefko adds. Kleber was active for tonight’s game against Milwaukee.
- Kyrie Irving sat out his sixth straight game with a sprained right thumb, but there’s optimism he’ll return soon, tweets Tim MacMahon of ESPN. Coach Jason Kidd told reporters that Irving had “two good days of practice” and said “hopefully he’ll be available” for the road trip that starts Monday.
- Kidd also said he’s trying to manage the load on Luka Doncic, who’s averaging a career-high 37.5 minutes per game so far this season, per Shawn McFarland of The Dallas Morning News (Twitter link). However, Kidd added, “This could be a night where he does play 40-something minutes” due to a shortage of available players.
- Kidd made headlines this week with his comparison of Doncic and Dirk Nowitzki, but the Mavericks shouldn’t expect Doncic to spend his entire career in Dallas like Nowitzki did unless they can build a team capable of competing for a title, Tim Cowlishaw of The Dallas Morning News argues in a subscriber-only piece.
The Mavs have put three good sets of teams around Luka and he has proven himself as hard to play with. He is a score first point who, even though he has high assist totals, does not effectively get his teammates involved. He’s had players such as porzingis who had no plays drawn up for him for an entire playoff series because Luka wanted him to just stand in the corner and wait for a three-point shot, and jaylen Brunson who is now an MVP candidate, who the Mavericks wouldn’t let run the point and move Luka to forward. Now he has Kyrie Irving and they still won’t let Irving run the point and move Luca to forward. Id trade Luka immediately and reap the benefits of the hype.
I hope the Mavericks never win another title. They tanked on purpose last year to keep #1 pick.
lol, clueless!!!