Game 9: Dallas Mavericks (2-6) vs. Memphis Grizzlies (3-6) | 7:00pm

[F Gump]

We just need Lively to stay on the court for longer than 10 games at a time. I believe he can, but he needs to show it.

I would love for Lively to be available in every game (or nearly that many). But I think the reality is that he has never shown any durability to handle the physicality of the NBA game.

As I have shared before, imo that has to be part of both your roster-building decision making, and also the way minutes are distributed (if he's on your roster, you will need someone else to absorb a big percentage of the physical beating that a center takes).

IIRC someone in the forum (my apologies for not remembering who) said Lively will give you 1000 minutes a season, and you should plan accordingly. I think that was a smart thought process in figuring out the Mavs' best way to use Lively. For reference sake, there are almost 4000 regular-season minutes for each position (and up to over 1150 in the playoffs). As a rookie Lively played 1294 (regular season) + 462 (playoffs). In year 2 he played 833.