Now You Know: No Brooklyn playoff push without Brook

It was February 19^th, 2015, the trade deadline in the NBA, and the deal was as good as done. Brook Lopez, the longest tenured player on the Nets, was about to be traded away from Brooklyn to the Oklahoma City Thunder. In return, the Nets would get a package headlined by 24-year-old point guard Reggie Jackson, who was already being described as the player who would become Brooklyn’s point guard of the future. The Nets were 10 games under .500, outside of the playoff picture, and ready to break up the core of the roster and re-tool.

But, somehow, the trade deadline passed and Brook Lopez was still on the roster. Fast forward a month and a half later, and it’s hard to imagine this current Nets team without him.

Brook Lopez hasn’t been immune to trade rumors during his Nets career. There was the entire 2011-2012 season when the then New Jersey Nets were interested in trading Brook Lopez away to the Orlando Magic for Orlando’s own Dwight Howard. That never materialized as Howard was eventually traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. Then, there were questions about how Brooklyn’s young star center would fit in after the 2013-2014 season, a year in which the Nets won their first playoff series in seven seasons with Lopez sidelined due to injury.

Through it all, Lopez has remained a professional, playing hard for the Nets night in and night out. Now, he has taken his game to a whole new level, averaging 25.5 points, 9.9 rebounds, and 2.8 blocks over his last 10 games. Brooklyn has gone 8-2 over that stretch and has worked its way up back to the 7^th seed in the Eastern Conference playoff race. Lopez has led and helped spark the Nets’ recent surge with his versatility on the pick and roll and his work crashing the offense glass. Lopez has been successful in roaming the paint, hitting floaters with an outstanding touch for a 7-footer and cleaning up his teammates’ missed shots. Lopez can also stretch the floor and hit midrange jumpers, thereby drawing his defender away from the rim and opening up the paint area for his teammates. In the past 10 games, the Nets have scored 49.6% of their points in the paint, the second highest percentage in the league over that stretch.

For all the good that Lopez has brought the Nets, his future in Brooklyn is far from guaranteed. This time, Lopez is the one in control. He can opt-out of his contract at the end of this year. It’s an interesting decision for him. If he opts out this year he’d be foregoing $16.7 million; but, if he opts out, he can potentially secure himself another four-to-five year long-term contract with more overall guaranteed money, something very important for a player who’s missed a good chunk of two seasons with injuries in the past.

No matter what happens the rest of the way, the Nets can point at Brook Lopez as the reason they are still alive in the playoff race. Brooklyn kept trying to trade its 7-foot scoring machine, looking for other players to help them win, when all along, trotting Lopez out to the court was the best chance the team had.