Dereck Lively II's injury just stole what the Mavericks need most for Cooper Flagg

With Dereck Lively II being announced to miss the entirety of this season with season-ending right foot surgery, the Dallas Mavericks are left with many future implications from this. One of them is obviously if they'd still be interested in shopping Anthony Davis and Daniel Gafford at this trade deadline. But the Mavericks must also consider Lively II's viability as a long-term building block of this team, which is not something the Mavericks want to think about for their 21-year-old center.

With Dallas not controlling any of their first-round draft picks until 2031, barring this upcoming draft, it was essential that some of the younger players on this roster started to show something alongside Cooper Flagg. Lively II was the most potential-filled player on the roster outside of Flagg heading into the season, but this may not be the case anymore due to his constant injuries.

Lively II is certainly capable of blossoming into an All-NBA Defensive level player at some point in his career, but the road to getting there will be a lot tougher given how many games he'll miss through three seasons in the league. In-game experience is essential for young players' development, and he hasn't gotten much of that so far. While Ryan Nembhard and Max Christie are both under-25 players who look like Dallas can take into the Flagg era as building blocks, Lively II's status is largely up in the air in that department.

Dereck Lively II's future next to Cooper Flagg is suddenly in doubt

Lively II is still young enough to bounce back from, but the track record for 7-footers carving out long and illustrious careers despite many lower-body injuries early in their career is not a good one. Players such as Greg Oden and Andrew Bynum had their careers cut short due to this, and Mavericks fans should pray that he can get back on track.

Based on the verbiage that Mavs PR used on a post on X, it seems Lively II will make a full recovery ahead of training camp next season. It seems Dallas is still committed to him for the long run, and they practically have no choice, given how much lower his trade value has probably gotten due to his injury history.

Lively II is getting surgery on the same foot he already had surgery on in the offseason, so it's especially scary to think about the repetitive trauma to his right foot and if this will be something that continues to plague him as he goes forward in his career. However, all Mavericks fans can do is hope Lively II gets healthy moving forward, and the one encouraging factor is that he's a tireless worker and will probably attack his rehab as hard as possible.

Maybe getting a little stronger in his lower body could help with injury prevention going forward, but Lively II is still missing valuable time in his young career, which undoubtedly lowers his stock going forward. Even if he still has immense potential.

Dallas clearly isn't going to shy away from getting Lively II back in the frontcourt to pair with Flagg next season, but the Duke duo's time in Dallas is off to a very rough start, with Lively II finishing his season at seven games played.