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Dereck Lively gives ‘gone fishing’ a new meaning
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- Dereck Lively gives ‘gone fishing’ a new meaning
The Dallas Mavericks have been without the services of Dereck Lively since very early last season, but that hasn't stopped him from making his presence known. Lively has made his fair share of team-related social media appearances and even stopped by Summer League in July, showing he is still very much in the mix with his Mavericks teammates despite continuing to rehab.
Now Lively is spooling up his Lively Lifestyle YouTube channel , with videos showing his love for Lego, collectibles and even fishkeeping. Lively's fourth video dropped late last week and in it he gave a tour of his fish room where he has three tanks. The smallest of the bunch is an 80-gallon cylinder tank which serves as home for various angel fish. Up next was a massive tank housing discus fish, followed by an absolutely monstrous 535-gallon tank with a variety of inhabitants quite literally soaking it up for the cameras. For perspective on that last tank, the thing is big enough to fit Lively himself inside of it with plenty of room to spare and it required ten people to get it inside his house.
From the video, you can immediately see that Lively isn't keeping these tanks purely for show. He clearly has a grasp of exactly what he is keeping and how to properly care for his fish, complete with quarantine tanks in his garage and industry friends to help him along the way. Ultimately, that's where Mavs' fans with no interest in the aquarist pastime may still find value in what Lively is doing in his spare time.
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Why this matters to the game of basketball
It is no secret that Legos have proven to provide cognitive benefits to those who enjoy building their sets. Psychology Today and other publications have written on the benefits, which include visuospatial reasoning, a skill correlated to a defensive-minded professional basketball player that often anchors that side of the floor and provides help defense to his teammates.
It is not much of a stretch to see similar benefits from fishkeeping. For the uninitiated, there is much more to the hobby than pouring water in a tank and tossing some fish in. Depending on how you go about cycling a tank, it can easily take weeks to even get to the point of adding the fish themselves. Patience, timing and anticipation are all key factors in a successful setup. Aquascaping – the process of choosing and arranging plants and other décor – is practically a science unto itself. That type of design skill improves with time but also requires an inherent spatial awareness to properly factor in protection, compatibility and aesthetics.
To be clear, I'm not at all suggesting that Lively's hobbies are going to catapult him to All-Star level play and a surefire future as a Hall of Famer when he returns. That said, the correlations between these hobbies and what they promote psychologically are fun to consider as the offseason winds down. If nothing else, Lively's off-court pursuits are a fun way to get to know a fan-favorite player and his burgeoning YouTube channel is a fun watch. Going beyond just the entertainment value, it is cool to drawn some correlation between a player's hobbies and the on-court skills they foster.
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