Mavericks exercise 2025-26 options on former first-rounders

The Mavericks have exercised the third-year rookie scale team options on center Dereck Lively and combo forward Olivier-Maxence Prosper, Dallas revealed (X link). They’ll now be under team control through at least the 2025-26 season.

Though both were first-round draft picks last summer, their impacts on a Finals-bound Mavericks squad were significantly different.

Lively, a 7-foot-1 big man out of Duke, was the No. 12 overall pick and, from almost his first game, had an outsized effect on the club’s big man depth. Though he didn’t close the year as the team’s starting five, he was arguably just as important as veteran Daniel Gafford.

Both Gafford and Lively are athletic, rim-rolling big men with high motors, who became easy lob partners for All-Star guards Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving. Across 55 healthy bouts last year, Lively averaged 8.8 points on 74.7% shooting from the field, plus 6.9 rebounds, 1.4 blocks, 1.1 assists, and 0.7 steals a night.

Prosper was drafted with the No. 24 pick out of Marquette but failed to emerge as a rotation piece for Dallas. The 6-foot-8 small forward/power forward appeared in just 40 contests for the Mavericks, averaging 3.0 points and 2.0 rebounds in 8.4 minutes per game.