NBA

Classic novel helped Shaun Livingston turn season around

The secret weapon that helped inspire Shaun Livingston’s midseason turnaround is a little blue book sitting in his locker inside Barclays Center.

It’s not a playbook, or a diary detailing the ins-and-outs of opposing point guards. Instead, it’s a copy of “Siddhartha,” the novel by Hermann Hesse detailing a man’s quest for enlightenment.

“[Nets basketball operations manager Matt] Riccardi gave it to me,” Livingston said after the Nets’ 108-102 win over the 76ers on Monday. “I was going through [some struggles] in December. … I’m a thinker, and I was in my head. I was struggling, and I was struggling mentally more than anything, and that will carry over to the games.

“That was a great book, man. [It’s about] a guy kind of finding himself. … He had to go through the different experiences to find himself, because he was searching for peace. It was a great book.”

One could say Livingston has gone through a similar journey. Not just over the last several years as he has battled to revive his career after tearing his ACL, PCL and lateral meniscus, as well as spraining his MCL and dislocating his patella and tibia-femoral joint in his left leg back in 2007, but over the past several months.

After a hot start to his season following his signing with the team as a free agent this summer, Livingston found himself in a December swoon. He had been given a chance to move into the starting lineup when Deron Williams went down with a left ankle sprain in late November, but was later sent to the bench in favor of since-traded third-string point Tyshawn Taylor after shooting 22.2 percent (6-for-27) during his six-game stretch as a starter.

It was then that Riccardi gave Livingston the novel, which the 6-foot-7 point guard said helped him realize he has a pretty good thing going being paid to play basketball for a living.

“You kind of put yourself in that position where you’re like, ‘That’s me,’ you know?” Livingston said, referring to the book’s main character. “But it kind of just helps on the court, I think. Mentally it kind of stabilizes you. You’re like, ‘All right. Nothing else matters. This is just a game,’ and you take all the pressure out of it.

“What I went through [with the injury] was kind of real life. … This is a game. Now, we get paid to do it, people’s jobs are on the line, you understand that. … I understand the professional part of it, the business part of it. But I get more out of it by thinking about it as a game and something you have fun with.”

At the time, it was generally assumed Livingston’s struggles were because of tiring from a significant spike in minutes filling in for Williams. It was the kind of playing time he rarely had after he spent the last several years bouncing from team-to-team — nine stints with eight NBA teams, plus a trip to the D-League — since returning to the court with the Clippers in 2008. He played for the Wizards and Cavaliers last season.

But anyone who has seen Livingston play this season — throwing down plenty of impressive dunks along the way — knows physical issues haven’t been the problem.

“I’m trying not to think about it,” he said with a smile of his increased explosion this season. “But, honestly, it feels good.”

Instead, Livingston said the far bigger problem was thinking too much about what was going wrong when he started to struggle, instead of being able to put it behind him and focus on the next game without any doubt creeping into his mind.

That was something that proved harder for him to do this season, because of the kind of opportunity he was being given in Brooklyn to jump-start his career.

“It’s tough, because again, you put all that work in during the summer and I know how hard I worked to get here and understood this opportunity [for me],” he said. “It’s like, I don’t want to blow it, but you can’t think of it like that.

“There’s always another way to look at it. Here I am, playing with Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Jason Kidd is my coach, I’m in Brooklyn, New York, they lobbied for me to be here. … Regardless of my circumstances, I’m here. I’m playing on national TV, and I’m from [Peoria, Illinois], a city of 100,000. … It’s just some little things like that, getting out of your head where it’s like, ‘I really don’t have it that bad.’

“You think about it, and I’m getting paid to put an orange ball in a hoop … it is a lot of pressure to go out there, and we get paid to perform. That’s what you’ve got to do. I understand that part of it, but that’s the part that can get overwhelming.”

Livingston also wanted to repay the faith Kidd saw in him this summer, when he lobbied for Livingston to be signed as the team’s backup point guard behind Williams. He said the future Hall-of-Famer’s belief in him has been an inspiration for him this season.

“[It meant] everything,” Livingston said. “Everything. That’s why I want to continue to let people know that he definitely deserves some of the credit he’s getting because he was visionary in a lot of this.

“Maybe there are guys that can do this better than me, or that better than me, but how do they fit with this team? I think that’s kind of the way he looked at it. But I just try to show my gratitude by going out there and proving him right.”

He certainly has done so recently, moving into the starting lineup again when Kidd chose to downsize to the small-ball lineup that has led to so much success for the team over the last few weeks, something Livingston has been a huge part of. In addition to running the offense, the Nets have used Livingston as their defensive stopper at the other end, having him guard the opposition’s most dangerous offensive weapon.

“He’s a guy who’s gaining confidence week-by-week,” Pierce said. “[He has an] increased role that I think he hasn’t had in years, and he believes in his ability.

“He’s so versatile out there. He can play the point guard or two guard, he can guard one through three or four … whatever we ask of him he’s given us. He’s sort of like a glue guy out there. Whatever we ask of him, he’s given the team.”

All of those skills were on display in Monday’s win, when he registered 13 points, six rebounds, eight assists and seven steals in 37 minutes, the latest in what has been an impressive series of performances over the past month that have been a large part of the team’s 11-4 run that’s begun to turn its season around.

“He’s playing a very high level, and we need him to do that,” Kidd said. “His character, on-and-off the court, he’s as good as they come. … He loves the game.

“I think with the injury he had, he appreciates it that much more, and the hard work to get back where he’s at right now. Basketball is sometimes looked upon as a game of runs, and also ups-and-downs, and he’s probably had those, and is trying to be consistent, and that’s what every players tries [to do]. Right now, he’s on that consistent roll we need.”

Now Livingston just wants to keep that up for the rest of the season.

“I’m just trying not to jinx it or think about it,” he said. “It’s a situation where I know where I’ve come from. … I just want to continue my same confidence, continue to play with the same confidence.

“I’m just trying to play the right way. As long as we get the win, that’s what I’m about. I play to win. If I have great numbers, that’s great. Obviously you feel good about it, but still, I’m playing to win.”