Dallas Mavericks Continue to Suffer as Promising Center Goes Down for Season
The Dallas Mavericks cannot catch a break lately, and the latest problem is Dereck Lively II’s season-ending surgery. In 2024, this team was in the finals. Now, their future is in utter shambles and not a single thing has gone well for them save for winning the NBA draft lottery. But now Cooper Flagg and fellow Duke prospect Lively won’t get to grow together this season.
Dallas Mavericks lose Dereck Lively for the season
Dereck Lively II has played in just seven of the Dallas Mavericks’ 25 games this season. He continues to battle foot pain and is officially going to have surgery to repair the injury. He is expected to be healthy by training camp, but he won’t appear again in 2025-26.
Lively was a crucial part of the Mavericks’ run to the Finals in 2024, but he’s been absolutely stunted by injuries since. He has appeared in 98 of 185 possible regular-season games, so health has been his biggest struggle. That’s not going to change any time soon.
The former Duke center had surgery on his right foot in July to clean up some bone spurs. He missed over two months last season with a stress fracture in his right ankle. It had previously been misdiagnosed as an ankle sprain. He missed nine games earlier this season due to a sprained right knee, returning on Nov. 14, playing four games on an 18-minutes limit.
And then the foot issues cropped up again. He was in and out of the lineup, citing discomfort and swelling in that surgically-repaired foot. He was supposed to be evaluated in 7-10 days on Tuesday, but it didn’t take long to see that he needs surgery again.
The Luka Doncic trade seems to have almost irreparably cursed the Mavericks. They were a Finals team and a perennial contender until then. Injuries slowed their pace in 2024-25, but they would’ve been a playoff team when Doncic returned.
Instead, he was shockingly traded, and things have gone so poorly for them ever since. The GM who orchestrated the deal has since been fired, but in the immediate aftermath, this is what has happened:
- Anthony Davis hurts his groin
- Kyrie Irving, with increased usage sans Doncic and Davis, tears his ACL
- Dereck Lively gets season-ending foot surgery
The only bright spot is that they landed the number one pick in the NBA lottery, somehow. But even that hasn’t played out correctly. Cooper Flagg has been good after a slightly slow start, but the expectation was that he’d be an immediate winner. Davis has been hurt, and now Lively’s out. Irving isn’t going to be back for some time. So with all those injuries, the Flagg-led Mavs are 9-16. They’re going nowhere right now.
This has prompted trade rumors. They’re expected to shop players like Daniel Gafford and Klay Thompson, and there are likely to be aggressive suitors for Davis, too. It would probably be in their best interest to completely blow it up and rebuild with Flagg.
Unfortunately, Lively II would’ve been a big part of that. He was a promising center from the Doncic era, but he represents one of two potential franchise cornerstones alongside Flagg. While Lively’s been in the NBA and doesn’t need to necessarily develop a pro game, it would’ve been nice to let him and Flagg get some chemistry and to see if Lively can continue to evolve and become the center of the future.
With the way things have gone, it wouldn’t be a surprise at all if the Mavericks continued dropping like flies. Injuries happen, but all this absolutely seems like karma for how they treated Doncic and the fact that they refused to even try to get the best or a worthy trade package for their former franchise icon.
