YouTube Gold: Dereck Lively On His Relationship With His Mother

Dereck Lively II had a slow start at Duke due to injuries and possibly because of the adjustment to this level of basketball. Obviously he wants to excel.

Unfortunately some lunatics weren’t willing to wait and apparently sent him death threats, which is beyond disgusting.

Fortunately, Lively is pretty even-keeled and took the morons in stride, saying that “...I’m not looking at them, I don’t care about them...Most of the time, those people are just mad that they lost money. Most of the time, they don’t even know basketball. They’re just mad that they lost a bet.

“You’ve just gotta be able to make sure that you stay focused.”

He’s done a pretty good job of that for a long time.

As you’ll see here, his father died when he was young and his mom was in a tough spot. But they stuck together and have always taken care of each other and even more so after she was diagnosed with cancer. It’s really quite a touching relationship.

The part that will get you right in the feels though will be when you see what he wanted to spend money on first when he got some NIL money. Nobody human could watch that and not be moved.