With training camp just days away, we’re going to ask a question a day about the upcoming Nets season.
Will Brook Lopez be able to make it through the season healthy?
Brook Lopez entered last season with a point to prove after spending virtually all of the 2011-12 season on the sidelines in street clothes after initially fracturing the fifth metatarsal in his right foot during the preseason, then suffering a setback after playing five games in the middle of the season.
Outside of a brief seven-game stint on the sidelines after an unrelated injury to the same foot in early December – a spell that happened to coincide with the beginning of a swoon that wound up costing Avery Johnson his job just after Christmas – Lopez largely proved that point. He was the best player on the team, averaging 19.4 points per game – the highest mark of any NBA center – and significantly improving his defense on his way to making his first All-Star appearance.
But then came the news this summer that, after undergoing his routine evaluation following the seven-game loss to the Bulls in the first round of the playoffs, the surgical screw in Lopez’s foot had bent over time and needed to be replaced.
That’s now three separate procedures Lopez has undergone on his right foot over the past two years, plus a fourth unrelated injury to the same foot. It’s certainly a concern that a player with Lopez’s 7-foot frame has had to deal with recurring foot issues.
For all of the moves the Nets made this summer, losing Lopez still would be a huge loss. He’s become one of the most efficient scoring big men in the league over the course of his career, and paired that last season with becoming a real presence at the rim defensively – which always had been the real hole in his game.
The potential is there for Lopez’s defense to take another step forward this season, thanks to the opportunity to play alongside one of the greatest defensive big men in NBA history in Kevin Garnett. While Lopez’s overall defense, and specifically his defense at the rim, improved significantly last season, he still struggles in pick-and-roll situations. Garnett, one of the best pick-and-roll defending bigs ever, can help Lopez improve at that end of the floor.
Lopez’s presence will keep Garnett from having to go through the wear and tear – even in what is widely expected to be a significantly reduced minutes load each night – of defending centers, as opposed to going up against power forwards.
The additions of all of the veterans the Nets brought in this summer were to supplement the core of Deron Williams, Joe Johnson and Brook Lopez. But that requires all of them to be productive and on the floor — and after the past two years, Lopez’s health is something the Nets will be monitoring closely.