The Nets are currently 4-4, an evenly .500 team with eight games gone by in the 2014-15 regular season. They started the campaign with a brutal blowout road loss to the Boston Celtics and then responded by winning four of their next five games. But, the last two contests on the West Coast haven’t been as kind, resulting in two losses for Brooklyn.
Brook Lopez has participated in the last six of those games after returning from a sore foot that cut his preseason short and he has yet to play like the Brook Lopez he has been when healthy in recent seasons.
Multiple times, a few in Nets losses, Lopez been thoroughly dominated by opposing centers, such as the two Nikolas–Pekovic of the Timberwolves and Vucevic of the Magic–as well as Andrew Bogut last night in Oakland. His tender foot may have something to do with that, but when does that stop becoming an excuse for the Nets center?
Brook has averaged 27.8 minutes, 15.7 points, 5.5 rebounds so far this season. He’s shooting over 46 percent from the field and almost 84 percent from the free throw line so his offensive efficiency has been pretty good shooting-wise. However, his defense, rebounding and remarkable lack of passing have really cost him and the Nets.
Rebounding has always been an issue for Lopez and he has only eclipsed six boards once this season, when he grabbed nine in the game against the Knicks. For a center of his size, that inability to corral loose balls kills the team defense in giving the opposition additional scoring chances. Also, on the offensive end, it takes away the potential points the Nets could get from easy putbacks on missed shots.
One. That’s how many assists Brook has this season in 167 minutes of play. That number seems like a mistakes but it’s sadly true. Somehow, Brook has only passed the ball to a teammate for a made shot once this whole year. Pretty crazy and also indicates how he has dominated the ball when he gets it, stopping almost all ball movement for the Nets.
Normally, centers are able to put up passable assist numbers due to their size and ability to see over shorter defenders to find open teammates. Brook has never been much of an assist guy but his lack of them is kind of startling.
Finally, Brook’s defense–outside of his 1.7 blocks and above-average 1.2 steals per game–has been abysmal. Those two statistics tell some of a story–that Brook has been able to reject a few guys’ shots here and there and force the occasional turnover–but it doesn’t indicate when those blocks are rebounded by opponents and put right back for a basket.
Also, they don’t show how he has given up loads of points to his opposing number, especially when said player is a top flight one. That is harder to typify in terms of measuring via statistics.
Clearly, the Nets’ early success this season has been limited, to a fault, by Brook’s rough start and whether or not that’s solely due to his injury is really an unknown. But if it doesn’t change soon–the Nets next play on Saturday night in Portland against the Trail Blazers, and Brook’s twin, Robin–then Brooklyn will be on a dangerous path.
One more loss would send them to under .500 and a loss to the Heat on Monday would make Brooklyn’s record even uglier. Blowing the huge lead against the Suns was bad enough, as was the drubbing by the Warriors yesterday, but they’ll be even worse if the Nets–and Brook–can’t learn from them and rebound with a win.
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