DALLAS — Kathy Drysdale, the mother of Dallas Mavericks rookie center Dereck Lively, died after a decade-long battle with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
Lively shared a tribute to his mother on Instagram shortly before the Mavericks-Pistons game on Friday night.
“My heart breaks saying goodbye to the most important person in the world to me. My best friend, my superhero, my biggest cheerleader and mom,” Lively wrote. “As strong and stubborn as she is, I have watched her struggle, fight, and survive cancer for the past 11 years and now her battle has ended surround(ed) by family, friends, and her teammates.”
Lively spoke about his relationship with Drysdale and her cancer battle in an interview earlier this year with WFAA. She’d lived in Dallas with Lively and often attended games.
Ahead of Friday’s game against the Pistons, Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said Lively, who’d been out with an injury, came to Friday morning shootaround and addressed the team.
“Incredible woman, when you talk about D-Live’s mom,” Kidd said. “As much as we talk about his injury, he had other things that were going on.”
“D-Live this morning wanted to get back into the swing of coming to work. He spoke to the team before, which was incredible for a 20-year-old to talk about what he was going through off the court not just with the injury, but with his mom, and then shortly after that, his mom passed,” Kidd said. “Just incredible of who Dereck Lively is as a young man to talk to the team to talk about his new family – this is his new family because of his parents passing.”
Lively’s father died of an overdose when Lively was 7, and his mother was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma two years later, beginning her decade-long battle with the disease.
Lively attended prep school near Philadelphia and became the No. 1 high school recruit in the country. After one year at Duke, he declared for the NBA Draft. He was selected 12th overall.
