MAVS NEWS:

[KillerLeft]

FIFY. 

Lively's propensity to get injured repeatedly is only talked about because it's been a major limiting factor in his ability to contribute each and every year. You're not the only one who hopes that he can find a way to stay healthy. 

There's also a financial concern looming - how do you pay him on the next contract, if he has another season where he gets dinged over and over and misses multiple chunks of the season? Lively's Next Contract is the question they will be dealing with in a year from now.

I don't disagree, I just think it's silly to be so doom and gloom about it so early in his career. I think adjusting to the grueling NBA season as a young player coming out of college is a skill, particularly for bigs who are still growing. There's a long history of bigs being injury prone, but there's also a fairly long list of those who seemed injury prone to start their careers and ended up as dependable, difference making players. 

I do agree with the "looming financial" deadline - that's the only thing that concerns me, really, but if he still hasn't learned to stay healthy by then I'd find an alternative path and not give him the contract his talent makes us all assume he'll want. 

I sure hope you're wrong about not testing the upper limits of his minutes per, in part specifically because of the looming second contract coming. I want to know whether or not he can be THE guy on defense, like his talent suggests. His effect on the floor dwarfs most centers so drastically that it would be a shame to preemptively decide he's a part time player. Gaffford, for example, while a good NBA player, doesn't come remotely close to the same quality of play as Lively. Like, it's not even a fair comparison, especially now that it seems the team is trending away from spamming spread pick and roll. I'm very afraid that this will mean Gafford is about to seem more underwhelming than expected on both sides of the floor, rather than just the defensive side. He made a tangible positive impact on offense as Luka's pick and roll partner, but I doubt that specific action will be Dallas' spam/go to now, even if they don't abandon it completely, and it will be much harder for he or Lively to thrive in it without Luka being the other half. Lively, alternatively, could thrive in a variety of different systems, and has already proven he's more than just "a lob threat," to quote an earlier poster, can't remember who. That's not meant as a slam on Gafford, either, as he's one of the very best backup centers in the league and probably more effective (in the right system) than quite a few starters. It's just that to my thinking, what Lively (and Davis, for that matter) bring to the position is quite literally the dream. I think one of those two at center is the biggest and best way for the Mavs to create a nightly advantage over their oponents with this roster that doesn't really have an offensive player you're scared of at the moment.