Mavs C Dereck Lively II will undergo season-ending right foot surgery

Dallas Mavericks center Dereck Lively II has played his last game of the 2025-26 season as he’ll undergo season-ending surgery on his right foot, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania.

Lively has played in just seven of the Mavs’ 25 games this season and has been dealing with persistent right foot discomfort. The third-year seven-footer has been Dallas’s defensive anchor up front, averaging 1.6 blocks per game and acting as a deterrent in the paint. Lively has been out of the lineup since Nov. 22.

This marks another chapter in an injury-plagued season for Dallas, which is not even a third of the way through. Veteran forward Anthony Davis returned from his own stint on the injured list in late November. Davis has been solid when healthy, averaging 19.6 points and 10.2 rebounds per game, but he’s only been available for 10 games. He has played in four consecutive games since Dec. 1, with the team winning three of those.

Point guard Kyrie Irving has not debuted this season as he continues to recover from a torn ACL suffered last season. Center Daniel Gafford has been in and out of the lineup early this season and is currently sidelined with an ankle injury. He has appeared in just 15 of the team’s 25 games so far. Klay Thompson has been dealing with knee soreness and was inactive for the team’s win over Houston on Saturday. Nonetheless, Thompson has played in 23 games.

When the injury bug strikes, it often feels like a snowball effect, because whatever can go wrong, will. There’s been a lot of chaos surrounding this team since the Luka Doncic trade to the Lakers last season. Since then, the team selected Cooper Flagg with the No. 1 pick in the draft amid the attention that entailed. The team fired former general manager Nico Harrison earlier this season, and there are ongoing trade rumors involving Davis.

The Mavs are currently 9-16, sitting in 11th place in the Western Conference, and were eliminated in the Group Play stage of the NBA Cup.