{"id":118487,"date":"2025-01-16T20:28:14","date_gmt":"2025-01-17T01:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=118487"},"modified":"2025-01-16T20:28:14","modified_gmt":"2025-01-17T01:28:14","slug":"mavericks-injury-dereck-lively-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/16\/mavericks-injury-dereck-lively-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest Mavericks Injury Ices Another Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another Mavericks injury has hit the team again with\u00a0<\/span>Dereck Lively II<\/span><\/a>\u00a0being the latest player to succumb to an injury following\u00a0<\/span>Daniel Gafford<\/span><\/a>‘s a week ago. Luckily for the Mavericks, Gafford wasn’t out for long and has since returned. Still, another hit to a big man is not what Dallas needs right now, as they’re fighting to maintain positioning in the Western Conference. Now, they are without Lively for the time being.<\/span><\/p>\n

Latest Mavericks Injury Ices Another Center<\/h2>\n

Mavericks Center Dereck Lively II Suffers Early Game Injury<\/h3>\n

After injuring his right ankle, Lively left Tuesday night’s game against Denver in the first quarter. As reported by NBA insider Chris Haynes<\/a>, it was eventually diagnosed as a right ankle sprain. The good news is that the X-rays returned negative. However, Lively will be sidelined for now, with no specific timeline for his return as of yet.<\/p>\n

Lively is in the middle of putting together a solid second year, averaging 7.1 points and 7.8 rebounds, mostly coming off the bench behind Gafford. Lively also averages 1.7 steals per game and shoots an efficient 70% from the field. Generally speaking, like his rookie season, Lively is continuing his progression as a significant piece to the Mavericks roster, and his career has only just begun.<\/p>\n

Staying Above Water Until the Calvary Arrives<\/h3>\n

The calvary is, of course,\u00a0<\/span>Luka Don\u010di\u0107<\/span><\/a>. Since losing Don\u010di\u0107 well in the late stages of last year, the Mavericks subsequently lost\u00a0<\/span>Kyrie Irving<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to a back injury shortly after. He has been dealing with a bulging disc despite returning to the lineup earlier this week. Don\u010di\u0107 is the Mavericks calvary and the driving force of the franchise. Suffice it to say, they have no shot of getting anywhere near their mountain peak of last season without him. If the injuries around him continue to pile up, as they are, the remaining season will only become more challenging with each night.<\/span><\/p>\n

Getting Gafford back as soon as they did was a godsend for the Mavs. He’s their strongest big man and, at least right now, has more of an impact and level of production than Lively contributes. That’s no shade on Lively, of course. But there is a reason why Gafford is the starting center and not someone else. So, while the Mavs continue to push through\u00a0<\/span>injuries to key players<\/span><\/a>, their only option is to stay above water. That test includes awaiting Don\u010di\u0107’s return.<\/span><\/p>\n

Considering they’ve dropped their last three matchups and are about to face the Oklahoma City Thunder twice in the next seven days, the\u00a0<\/span>Minnesota Timberwolves<\/span><\/a>, and the\u00a0<\/span>Boston Celtics<\/span><\/a>\u00a0before next Sunday, Dallas’ schedule is not going to get much easier. That’s why capitalizing on the Charlotte Hornets in between those greater opponents is absolutely crucial. Can they steal another game from one of the other teams? It could happen, and it would help, but nothing is guaranteed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lively’s Return<\/h3>\n

Hopefully, the Mavericks will not have to endure a lengthy absence without Lively. If he can replicate a similar turnaround to Gafford’s, it will help Dallas immensely. He and Kyrie have been ruled out for Friday night’s matchup at home against OKC. After that, it will be day-to-day and, hopefully, nothing more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another Mavericks injury has hit the team again with\u00a0Dereck Lively II\u00a0being the latest player to succumb to an injury following\u00a0Daniel Gafford‘s a week ago. Luckily for the Mavericks, Gafford wasn’t out for long and has since returned. Still, another hit to a big man is not what Dallas needs right now, as they’re fighting to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":118489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,1608,62],"tags":[1453,4840,406,1133],"class_list":["post-118487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mavericks","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-daniel-gafford","tag-dereck-lively-ii","tag-kyrie-irving","tag-luka-doncic"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118487"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118494,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118487\/revisions\/118494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}