Brook Lopez led all NBA centers in scoring last season, averaging 19.4 points per game, and was the low-post anchor of a team that won 49 games.
Yet, Lopez found himself lacking in individual honors during and after the season. He failed to make the All-Star team initially, only getting to go to Houston for the All-Star Game as an injury replacement for Rajon Rondo.
Lopez then was left off the three All-NBA Teams after the season, and was also shut out of the voting for the best center in the league from a survey of the league’s general managers, with Dwight Howard, Marc Gasol, Tim Duncan and Roy Hibbert receiving votes.
It seems as if someone as massive as Lopez, who stands 7-feet and weighs 290 pounds, and still can be overlooked playing in the media capital of the world.
“I think when you make an All-Star team, the first one, you can still fly under the radar,” Nets coach Jason Kidd said Monday. “But if he can add to that, if the team plays well and he can have the opportunity to get on those a little more, he won’t fly under the radar as much as he probably has his first couple of seasons.”
For Lopez, who never has enjoyed his dealings with the media, plying his trade in the background and in anonymity has never seemed to be an issue. But he’ll have little choice this season after the Nets hired Kidd and brought in Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce in the blockbuster draft night trade with the Celtics, injecting enough star power into the franchise to light up Barclays Center.
But despite all the glitz and glamour around him, how far the Nets go this season will, in many ways, be determined by how far Lopez’s broad shoulders can carry them. With the newfound space the Nets have on offense with the arrival of Pierce and Garnett, Lopez has found himself single-covered throughout the preseason. And the extra 15 pounds of muscle he packed on during the offseason have allowed him to push defenders off the block with ease.
“To grow and to get better,” Kidd said when asked for his goals for Lopez this season. “That’s his foundation, what he did last year. He shouldn’t shy away from what he did last year, because that’s one of the best centers in the league.”
Lopez said he isn’t worried about individual achievement.
“I’m not worried about the personal stuff … I’m worried about the team,” he said. “If we win, that stuff comes. I’m concerned only with winning.”
He is right about that. And if Lopez can push on from his successful 2012-13 campaign and improve in a few areas – perhaps surpassing 20 points per game, pushing up his rebound total and playing better defense, all of which are achievable – the Nets should do plenty of winning and Lopez could begin to gain more of the recognition his coach and teammates think he deserves.
“Yeah. I think he should be on it,” Kidd said of Lopez’s place among the best centers in the GM survey. “He’s one of the best … but that just shows that he does get overlooked.”