There seems to be no limit on the amount of bad news the Nets can get this season.
An already disastrous start to what was the most anticipated season in team history took another huge blow Saturday morning when the team announced Brook Lopez suffered a fractured fifth metatarsal in his right foot during Friday night’s 121-120 loss to the 76ers in Philadelphia.
The Nets didn’t put a timetable on how long Lopez would be out, saying they would release an update later in the week after consulting with their team physicians, but it seems likely he will miss the rest of the season.
This is the same injury to the same bone Lopez initially fractured during a preseason game against the Knicks two years ago Saturday, just prior to the start of the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season. He later suffered a setback and sat out the remainder of that season after playing just five games.
He then underwent surgery this past offseason to replace a bent screw that had been inserted to stabilize the bone when it was discovered during Lopez’s season-ending physical in May.
After playing every game through his first three seasons in the league, Lopez has now played just 96 regular season games combined over his last three seasons, assuming he doesn’t return this season.
The Nets are 7-10 in games Lopez has played this season, and they are 2-7 in the nine games he has missed. During the last three seasons, they are 55-41 with Lopez in the lineup and 25-53 without him.
Lopez is far from the first NBA big man to have recurring foot problems, which have prematurely ended the careers of many players — most famously Bill Walton and Yao Ming. Lopez is in the second year of a four-year, $61 million contract that includes a player option after next season.
When Lopez was fouled by Evan Turner with 4:53 remaining in the fourth quarter Friday, he winced and rubbed his right foot after getting tangled up with Thaddeus Young on the way down to the floor, but never came out of the game. He played the rest of regulation and all of overtime, finishing with 22 points and seven rebounds in 44 minutes.
The loss of Lopez, arguably the league’s best and most efficient low-post scorer, all but ends any serious talk of the Nets being able to make a deep playoff run this season, even in the pathetically weak Eastern Conference. Despite all the moves the Nets made in the offseason, they were done with Lopez in the post in mind.
“I’ve never played with a center whose skill level is at this point,” Kevin Garnett said of Lopez during training camp. “I’ve obviously played with greats, but to the point where he’s young and still hasn’t peaked yet, the sky’s the limit for Brook.”
Lopez seemed to be living up that potential, particularly at the offensive end, where he was averaging 20.7 points on 56.3 percent shooting through 17 games this season, on the heels of making his first All-Star appearance last year.
With Lopez out, the Nets likely will slide Kevin Garnett over to center and insert Andray Blatche into the starting lineup, and then will back them up with a combination of Mirza Teletovic, Mason Plumlee and Reggie Evans.
There also is the possibility the Nets could apply for the disabled player exception under the collective bargaining agreement, as ESPN reported they may, which would allow them to either trade for a player in the final year of his contract or sign a free agent for up to the full mid-level exception.
However, that seems like a path the Nets would be unlikely to pursue, given the immense cost Russian billionaire owner Mikhail Prokhorov has undertaken to put this team on the floor, with a bill of roughly $189 million set to be paid between payroll ($102 million) and luxury tax ($87 million) commitments. Adding a player, even at a veteran’s minimum salary, would add several million dollars more to that total.
Even if the Nets go that route, no one they could add would come close to replacing the production and protection Lopez gave the team at both ends of the floor.
“We’ve got a great center,” Joe Johnson said recently. “Everything is going through him, and the rest of us are playing off him and we’re just making plays, trying to be aggressive.”
Unfortunately for Lopez and the Nets, they won’t be playing off of their All-Star center anytime soon.