Here on Brooklyn Balling, I’ll try to recap the chaos that was the 2013-14 Nets season with a series of “Season Review” posts on the players, trades, and even coach that shaped how this year turned out. Marquis Teague was last, and Brook Lopez is up next.
Unfortunately, this season, for the second time in his career, Brook Lopez was forced to play less than 20 games due to a debilitating foot injury. A broken right foot suffered on December 20th against the 76ers made the Nets’ center miss more than three-quarters of yet another campaign, limiting him to 17 games of play.
Before the injury, Lopez was playing some of the best basketball of his career, averaging over 20 points per game. An ankle injury in November caused him to pause his great start for six games, but after returning, he picked up right where he left off, even as his team scuffled a bit. Unfortunately, though, just 11 games after returning to the lineup–with a minor ankle sprain sandwiched in between–he broke his foot and would go on to miss the rest of the season.
As Yao Ming, Bill Walton, and many other former NBA big men–and now top draft prospect Joel Embiid–can attest, foot problems seem to follow large center and power forwards for obvious reasons, mostly relating to the amount of weight forced to be supported by the feet. This issue has plagued Brook Lopez’ entire career, and cost him nearly the entire 2011-12 and 2013-14 seasons.
Hopefully, for both him and the Nets, the foot that was injured this past year will be fully healed for the upcoming 2014-15 season. Lopez, with the possible departures of Paul Pierce to free agency and Kevin Garnett to retirement (and maybe even Deron Williams via trade), needs to perform well for the entire season if Brooklyn is going to make some noise in the postseason as they have done in the past two seasons.
He’s under contract through this year and has a player option for the 2015-16 season, so depending on the way this campaign plays out, next season may be Brook’s last in a Nets uniform. Now, in all likelihood, he has a solid bounce-back year and exercises his option for the additional season, but nothing can be taken for granted in the NBA as another foot injury could be flat-out devastating.
The Nets really missed Lopez’ presence down low this season, and it was clear to see how much the team needed his scoring and defensive abilities when it went through its patented (and debilitating) droughts. A healthy Brook is the single most-important aspect of the success of the 2014-15 Nets as that, paired up with a hopefully-resurgent Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, and possibly Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, would be a formidable starting five.
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