Caris LeVert: the NBA player saved from cancer thanks to a transfer

The life of Caris LeVert It took a much bigger turnaround than you might suspect on January 13, when he was part of the four-way trade that made James Harden’s move from Houston to Brooklyn possible. It was one of the transfers of the season, a change of cards that modified the ecosystem that had prevailed until that moment in the NBA. The Nets, with the stellar trio of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving y Harden, their options for the title were multiplied from one day to the next, held by the Lakers. LeVert wouldn’t have wanted to leave the Nets, the team in which he began his fifth season in the NBA. However, he had no choice but to accept the axiom of a League in which you cannot pay for transfers, but where the franchises have absolute freedom to send players from one place to another.

LeVert (Columbus, Ohio, age 26) did not know that that transfer was going to be providential for them to detect kidney cancer. Nothing had made him suspicious. He had played every Nets game this season normally, and the day before the trade he spent 26 minutes on the court and added 20 points against Denver.

That agreement, on January 13, between Brooklyn, Houston, Cleveland and Indiana, sent LeVert to this last team, precisely the one that chose him in 2016 in the 20th place of the draft, but that immediately changed him for Thaddeus Young with the Nets. The medical examination after the transfer two weeks ago, more thorough than the routine ones, detected the carcinoma that suffered his left kidney. “I didn’t have any symptoms. I hadn’t missed a game. I felt 100% healthy,” LeVert said. “The change of team allowed us to see what was happening to my body. From that point of view, I think that the transfer could save my life in the long term.” He was operated on Tuesday by Dr. Jason Sprunger at Community Hospital North in Indianapolis. Doctors indicated that no further treatment will be necessary. “Obviously, I want to play as soon as possible,” said the new Pacers guard before undergoing surgery. “I am a competitor; I love to play. But the most important thing is to ensure my good health. When I can play again is not what worries me most at the moment. “

Injuries and difficult situations

LeVert’s career, despite two major injuries, has been upward. The Nets renewed his contract in August 2019 for three seasons and $ 52.5 million, 43.3 million euros. During the previous season and the first 12 games of this one, he averaged almost 19 points, more than four rebounds and almost six assists. In the absence of Durant and Irving, he started. And Steve Nash, the Nets coach, said that this season he could play a role similar to that of Manu Ginobili when the forward triumphed as the sixth man for the Spurs.

The new Pacers player has been through very difficult situations in his life. He was 15 years old when his father, Darryl Sr., 46, died of heart failure. Caris and her younger brother Darryl discovered it at their home in Pickerington, Ohio. LeVert’s mother, Kim, suffers from multiple sclerosis. “I try to get the positive out of every situation,” says LeVert. “If they knew my mother, they would never guess that she suffers from this disease. She is very special. I have a lot of faith in God. I know that not everything is perfect, but in life, the important thing is how you react to what happens to you.”