Brook Lopez returned from the foot injury he suffered in preseason in the Brooklyn Nets’ 31-point victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday night, and his impact was clear to see for all of those in attendance.
In his absence for most of last season, there was plenty of talk about just how good Brook Lopez is, and how much better the Brooklyn Nets are when he’s a part of the rotation.
To determine whether or not that’s true, the key will be for the 26-year-old center to stay healthy this season, which is something he has had regular struggles with throughout his time in the NBA.
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One thing is for sure, based upon the smallest of sample sizes, with only three games having been played, Lopez played his part in comfortably the most convincing Nets performance of the bunch.
It wasn’t the Nets first win of the season, as having beaten the Detroit Pistons on Saturday, the Nets record of 2-1 already has them over .500 (a feat they didn’t achieve until March last season).
Yet the contrast between how Brooklyn beat Oklahoma City, and how they beat Detroit couldn’t be much starker. The Nets team that secured victory against the Pistons was one led by the individual brilliance of one Joe Johnson.
Facing off against his former teammate Josh Smith, Johnson went off for 34 points, eight rebounds and six assists, in the process putting on the type of masterclass that he is capable of orchestrating multiple times a season.
On the other side of the coin, the Nets crushed a hobbled Oklahoma City Thunder team thanks to a balanced effort, driven forwards with solid team basketball. Lopez himself led the scoring for Brooklyn alongside Alan Anderson, with 18 points apiece.
Most striking of all though was how the team were able to create opportunities for themselves at will.
In other words, it was only with that display, and the return of Brook Lopez that we got a true sense of what the Brooklyn Nets can be this season.
New Nets coach Lionel Hollins is coming to Brooklyn off the back of a coaching spell in Memphis where he ran a team built around dominant, skilled big men. The reality is that Hollins will try to carry elements of that over to his work in the Nets.
With Lopez in the middle, Brooklyn will have their widest range of options on both ends of the floor, and will pose a significant enough threat from man to man to create countless opportunities for themselves to take control of games.
The joy of that is, when things aren’t going Brooklyn’s way with a more traditional strategy in place, they will always have a card up their sleeve. If needed, Johnson can always go all “iso-Joe” to take over a game, and he has more than enough skill to push the team over the edge in those scenarios.
An example of how the team is generally more cohesive as a unit when anchored by Lopez was how Brooklyn managed to move the ball so much better against the Thunder than they had in their previous two outings.
When you consider that the Nets had managed no more than 20 assists in either of their opening two games, Brooklyn’s 25 dishes in Monday’s game was particularly refreshing.
Add that to it being the team’s best shooting night so far, and also the lowest shooting percentage they’d given up to an opponent so far in the early going, and it becomes clear that Lopez is a difference maker.
Sure, his health is the big question, but if Brook Lopez can remain in full flow, the Nets will be a significantly better team. Then even if he can’t, at least as Joe Johnson has demonstrated, Brooklyn’s roster is multi-faceted in terms of talent this season.
Asked about Lopez’ return, and the team’s expectations in terms of his health for the upcoming season, Nets point guard Deron Williams gave his thoughts to Nets Daily. Williams revealed:
"We like him out there as much as possible. It’s definitely a luxury. We have had to figure out how to play without him. We have had to have smaller lineups but I don’t want to think like that. I want to think like Brook is going to be out there for the entire season because we need him."
For a franchise who’s owner showed no hesitation in pushing past the luxury tax in order to build the current team, perhaps it’s time that the Nets have more of a touch of luxury on the court after all, and there’s little doubt that Lopez can be the man to deliver that.