2026-27 projection
| GP | MPG | FG% (FGA) | FT% (FTA) | 3PM | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 38 | 20 | .650 (5.0) | .700 (1.8) | 0.0 | 8.0 | 6.8 | 1.8 | 0.6 | 1.5 | 1.2 |
Lively played seven games in 2025-26 and averaged 4.3 points, 5.3 rebounds, 1.9 assists, and 1.6 blocks in 16.4 minutes. Tiny-sample shooting percentages are not a meaningful baseline.
Fantasy translation
- Nine-category: IL stash or final-round blocks/FG% bet only after a running/contact update. Per-game ceiling is attractive; totals floor is nearly zero.
- Points: watch-list center, activated only when a firm return and 20+ minutes appear.
- Dynasty: high-risk age-22 hold. Do not value him like a normal young starter until he proves sustained availability; do not sell solely on current zero production if the return is negligible.
Role, floor, ceiling, uncertainty
- Median role: 20 MPG when active, with careful ramping and no assumption of back-to-backs.
- Floor: another lost season or fewer than 25 games.
- Ceiling: 55 games at 25 MPG, approximately 10/8/2 with two blocks and elite FG%.
- Medical evidence: December season-ending right-foot surgery followed earlier foot procedures. On June 26 he had left the boot but had not begun running, said there was no timetable, and emphasized waiting beyond feeling good to avoid recurrence.
- Competition: Gafford is the safe center; Morez is the young insurance; Aldama can play offense-first five. Dallas need not rush Lively.
Sources
- Dallas announces season-ending foot surgery — December 10, 2025.
- NBA report on Lively's foot injury — December 2025 medical/stat background.
- Lively not cleared to run — June 26, 2026 report relaying Christian Clark's update.
- Dereck Lively II NBA player page — official roster/news; accessed July 18, 2026.
Career record
Pre-NBA: Westtown School (Pennsylvania), where he averaged 14.0 points, 14.0 rebounds and 4.5 blocks as a senior and was named Morgan Wootten National Player of the Year, Mr. Pennsylvania Basketball and a McDonald's All-American in 2022. One season at Duke, 2022-23: 32 games, 19.8 minutes, 5.4 points, 5.0 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 2.3 blocks on .658 from the floor, .154 from three and .600 from the line, earning ACC All-Freshman and ACC All-Defensive honors. The scoring never arrived in college; the rim protection and the finishing did, and that is still exactly the player. Draft: 2023, first round, 12th overall, Oklahoma City Thunder — traded to Dallas on draft night, where he signed on July 8, 2023.
| Season | Age | Team | GP | MPG | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | 3PM | FG% | FT% | TO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | 19 | DAL | 55 | 23.5 | 8.8 | 6.9 | 1.1 | 0.7 | 1.4 | 0.0 | .747 | .506 | 0.9 |
| 2024-25 | 20 | DAL | 36 | 23.1 | 8.7 | 7.5 | 2.4 | 0.6 | 1.6 | 0.0 | .702 | .630 | 1.1 |
| 2025-26 | 21 | DAL | 7 | 16.4 | 4.3 | 5.3 | 1.9 | 0.6 | 1.6 | 0.0 | .611 | .800 | 1.4 |
| Career | 98 | 22.9 | 8.4 | 7.0 | 1.6 | 0.6 | 1.5 | 0.0 | .725 | .579 | 1.0 |
The 2025-26 row is seven games and should not be treated as a rate baseline in any category, including the .800 free-throw mark.
Fantasy history: no published season-end nine-category rank is verifiable for any of his three seasons, so none is asserted. The shape is unambiguous and has not changed: a near-.750 field-goal percentage on five to six attempts, top-tier blocks, strong rebounds, zero threes, and a free-throw percentage that has been a genuine cost rather than a rounding issue — .506 as a rookie on real volume, .630 in year two. That combination makes him a punt-free-throw asset first and a balanced-build asset only reluctantly. Points leagues rate him below his category value, since the percentage leverage that carries him in nine-cat is worth nothing there and his 8.4 career points per game is not enough to compensate. Availability, not shape, is why he has never had a season-long rank worth quoting: 55, 36 and 7 games means he has never delivered a full slate of anything.
Durability: 55, 36, 7 — 98 of a possible 246 regular-season games across three years. As a rookie he missed roughly 27 games to ankle sprains and a fractured nose. In 2024-25 he missed nine games with a sprained right knee, returning November 14, then was diagnosed in January 2025 with a stress fracture in the right ankle that had originally been called a sprain; that cost him most of January through April and capped him at 36 games. He had surgery on the right foot in July 2025 to clean out bone spurs, played seven games in 2025-26, and on December 10, 2025 Dallas announced season-ending surgery on the same right foot after persistent swelling and discomfort in the previously repaired area. As of June 26, 2026 he had come out of the boot but had not begun running, with no timetable given. This is the profile that matters most: three separate procedures or fractures on the same right lower extremity in eighteen months, and the most recent one is a revision of an earlier surgery rather than a new injury.
Trajectory: The per-36 record is genuinely encouraging and almost beside the point. He went from 13.5 points, 10.6 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 2.1 blocks per 36 as a rookie to 13.6, 11.7, 3.7 and 2.5 in his second season — the scoring held flat while rebounding, rim protection and especially passing all improved, and a jump from 1.7 to 3.7 assists per 36 for a non-shooting center is the kind of skill growth that expands a role rather than just filling one. He is 22, which is early enough that the offensive ceiling is still open. But the availability record now dominates the projection in a way it did not a year ago, because the December 2025 operation was a revision on a foot Dallas had already operated on in July, and repeat surgery on the same navicular-region structures in a 7-foot-1 player is the archetype that ends careers rather than merely interrupting them. Dallas also has no reason to hurry: Gafford is the functional starter and the frontcourt is deep. For 2026-27 the honest read is that the per-minute value is top-100 and the expected minutes are unknowable, so the correct treatment is a late-round or injured-list dart rather than a projection, and the first real information will be a running-and-contact clearance in camp, not a stat line.
Career sources: ESPN career stats · StatMuse season-by-season per game · Dereck Lively II (Wikipedia) · ESPN — season-ending right foot surgery, December 10, 2025 · NBA.com — right ankle stress fracture, January 2025 · FantasyPros — not cleared to run, June 26, 2026
Open questions
- When does Lively run, take contact, and complete full practice?
- Does Dallas set an opening minute ceiling or back-to-back restriction?
- Is extension uncertainty relevant to the return plan?