The Nets are treating today as if it were a game day, holding a shootaround in the morning followed by a full-blown intra-squad scrimmage tonight.
It may not sound exciting, but it is to Nets center Brook Lopez, who is finally back on the court after a pair of foot injuries kept him off of it virtually all of last season.
“I look forward to it all,” Lopez said. “I haven’t played (5-on-5) since February, so these last few days [of practice] have been great for me.”
The first step for Lopez was to get healthy, after first a stress fracture of the fifth metatarsal in his right foot cost him half the season before another injury to the same foot after five games cost him the rest of it.
Lopez also had to get past the never-ending speculation about a Dwight Howard trade, which temporarily ended when the Nets signed him to a four-year, $61 million contract in July before it permanently went away when Howard was traded to the Lakers in August.
But the two big men were linked again recently when Shaquille O’Neal — who repeatedly has taken shots at Howard in the past — said he thinks Lopez is more skilled than Howard offensively.
“I think it’s great,” Nets coach Avery Johnson said. “It’s great. Brook is a skilled center. There are very few centers in the NBA that can do what he can do on the floor, especially offensively.”
But one area everyone, including Johnson and Lopez, agree he needs to improve is his rebounding. The Nets, in part, committed to Lopez for the long-term because they believe he’s much closer to the player who averaged more than eight rebounds a game in each of his first two years in the league than the one who averaged 5.9 a game in 2010-11 and 3.6 in his very limited playing time last season.
And, at least on one possession during yesterday’s practice, you could see the emphasis on rebounding sinking in. After missing a shot, Lopez repeatedly went after the ball, getting three separate offensive rebounds off missed shots in a row before he was finally able to score.
“With Brook, I’m not so much looking at it for a number,” Johnson said. “When I’m saying a number with Brook specifically for rebounds, I’m looking at how many times he attempts to rebound.
“If you saw him today in the scrimmage, he went to the offensive glass three more times than he did the first year I coached him.”
Lopez said part of the issue with his rebounding has been a change in his mindset as he has gained a larger scoring role.
“It was a bit of a combination,” Lopez said. “It was something I focused on a bit more in my first and second years, when I wasn’t as much of a focal point, I suppose. I have to really reassert myself in there to follow my own shot, or following someone else’s shot when they shoot it.”
But, mostly, Lopez is looking forward to the chance to get back out on the court and prove the Nets made the right move by locking him up for the next few seasons.
“I was disappointed that I worked so hard the previous season to work on my offensive game and work on my rebounding and really put a focus on it, and then I didn’t get a chance to do anything,” Lopez said. “I just took it as a long time to really continue to get better, get stronger, and really work on everything and refocused. … I’m just so excited for this upcoming season.”