The 2011-12 season has been full of one devastating injury after another for the Nets.
None, however, have harmed the team as much as the first one, when Brook Lopez suffered a stress fracture in the fifth metatarsal in his right foot against the Knicks in the Nets’ second and final preseason game.
That injury, and the subsequent sprained ankle that Lopez suffered in Charlotte on March 4, have limited Lopez to five games this season, a number that won’t increase after Nets general manager Billy King announced prior to Friday night’s game at Prudential Center against the Wizards that Lopez will be shut down for the remainder of the season.
“Brook will not play for the rest of this year,” King said. “He is healing nicely but with 10 games to go and him being a free agent and looking for the future, we’ll sit him down for the rest of this year.
“By the end of the season he should be pretty healed. At the end of the season, we’ll do a CT scan.”
King said that he spoke to Lopez’s agent, Arn Tellem, while in Los Angeles, and the two decided that the best thing to do would be to shut down the 7-footer, who is set to be a restricted free agent this summer, for the rest of the season.
“It was a collective effort,” King said. “But everybody thought it was best for the young center not to risk anything for the rest of the year.”
Lopez is now the sixth Net to be ruled out for the season, joining Damion James, Jordan Farmar, since-released Keith Bogans and since-traded Shawne Williams and Mehmet Okur.
The Nets entered the season hoping to pair Lopez with Deron Williams to form one of the league’s best inside-out combinations. But, instead, the two have only managed to play 17 games together since Williams was acquired in a blockbuster trade with the Jazz last season.
With Fred Kerber
tbontemps@nypost.com