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MINNEAPOLIS – He had been one of the best stories of the NBA season, a young player who looked like he was developing a foundational star for one of the NBA's rebuilding franchises.
Caris LeVert deserved all the accolades he was getting this season. His path to the cusp of NBA stardom had never been straight, his success never guaranteed, his adolescence and young adulthood. LeVert was a sophomore in high school in Columbus, Ohio when he woke up early on Easter morning to rouse his father from bed. LeVert and his father are more like friends than father and son, both are highly competitive. It was his father who put a basketball hoop in his crib when they brought baby Caris home from the hospital, who got him a Little Tikes basketball hoop as soon as Caris could walk, who played basketball under the lights in the driveway with his son until well after dark. LeVert's mother once told me of a time when his father, Darryl LeVert, beat him in a game of H-O-R-S-E in front of his friends. Caris cried and locked himself in his bedroom for the rest of the day.
On Easter morning 2010, though, LeVert and his younger brother found their father on the couch, unresponsive. They called 911. Their father was dead at a heart attack at age 46. Their mother was out of town at a family reunion. It was Caris who made the phone call: "Mom, Daddy is dead."
When LeVert signed at the University of Michigan, he was fulfilling his father's greatest dream. His dad had been an athletic Division III basketball player. Caris, however, had loads more talent. Yet he was not highly recruited; LeVert ranked 239th in the class of 2012, according to one scouting service, and had initially signed to mid-major Ohio University before switching to Michigan. By his sophomore year, though, he was working himself into discussion as a potential future lottery pick, averaging 12.9 points and shooting 40.8 percent from 3. After that season, he had surgery to repair a stress fracture in his foot. Midway through a stellar junior season, he injured the same foot, and decided to skip the NBA draft. His senior year, he suffered a different injury on the same leg – a Jones fracture in the fifth metatarsal of his left foot – and underwent his third surgery in 22 months.
But against all odds, and against repetitive misfortune, LeVert kept getting back up.
The Nets took a risk on LeVert's upside down by the pick of the 2016 draft on him. By this season, it looked like their gamble had paid off in a major way, as the agile 24-year-old guard appeared to be a star in the making. He scored a career-high 27 points in the Nets' opener this season, then beat that two nights later with 28 points. On Friday night, LeVert hit the game-winning shot in the final second as the Nets upset the Denver Nuggets. When it's off the road to the Target Center on Monday evening for the Nets 'game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, LeVert was averaging 19.0 points, 4.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists over the Nets' first 13 games, a primary offensive option and a leader and a two-way player who worked hard as a person on the court. It is one of the most surprising stories of the young NBA season, and one of the most inspirational as well.
And then, in a flash, it evaporated.
With a few seconds remaining in the first half of a three-point game, Josh Okogie's rookie Timberwolves grabbed a defensive rebound and dashed headlong in transition toward the other basketball. LeVert. As a pink Okogie towards the rim, LeVert shot in and jumped as he went for the chase-down block. The Green collided with Okogie in midair and knocked him to the ground. The two fell simultaneously, with Okogie's full body weight falling on LeVert's right ankle. The ankle, basically, snapped in two, not unlike Gordon Hayward's gruesome injury a year ago. LeVert clutched it in bread. Players were horrified and turned away. A stretcher was immediately brought out. Nets' staffers covered LeVert with a towel. Anthony Tolliver led his Timberwolves teammates in a prayer.
Teammates and opponents knew the outlines of LeVert's journey, and the inspiration surrounding his success. That story made this awful injury even worse.
"That guy," said Nets power forward Jared Dudley, "was on his way."
The arena was eerily silent, only to awaken with a standing ovation when LeVert was wheeled out. The half ended somberly.
"I was on the court for Paul George, (Gordon) Hayward and this," Timberwolves guard Derrick Rose said. "It's always in your mind in the whole game … You gotta forget about it and be a professional.
As the Nets were taken back to their locker room, several were crying. Inside the locker room was dead silence.
"Just seeing that, it breaks your heart – it really does," Nets guard Joe Harris said. "There's no words, we did not talk, even when we came in at halftime." "It was really, really bad." "You could just feel it, the emotions of everybody were really bad, horrific."
Fifteen minutes later, the second half starts just as an ambulance, sirens blaring, left the Target Center dock loading with LeVert inside.
One of the 2018-19 NBA season's most inspiring stories, one of the season's brightest young stars, almost certainly was over, at least for this season.
"He's the heart and soul of our program," Nets head coach Kenny Atkinson said after the game. He's had a fantastic start to the season I just know Caris, if anybody's coming back from this, knowing the human, the character, the person, the player, he'll come back from this thing. "
Atkinson looked exhausted. He did not want to be answering any more questions, and you could not blame him.
"The game did not matter tonight," he said. "That's it, I just think it's a devastating blow for us, that's all I really want to say about this. anything else. "
After 60 seconds, the coach postgame was over. And the coach was right. The game ended in a 120-113 Timberwolves win, and the game did not matter one bit.
After LeVert was taken from the Target Center to a local hospital, I thought of something he said to me when I was writing about it. He was talking about his father's death, and about overcoming his injuries, but he might have been speaking to the future Caris LeVert, the one who suffered the devastating injury on Monday night.
"God does not make mistakes," LeVert told me back then. "It's something I've grown to believe in. It's not really happening here. It's just getting you there. It's getting stronger and smarter from it. "
So here's to Caris LeVert, and to him making an unlikely comeback once again.
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