Thursday, November 18, 2010

Why Is Brook Lopez Becoming Andrea Bargnani (Sans the 3s)

I've watched every single Nets game this year and I've been growing infuriated with Brook Lopez. In his third year, with arguably the best supporting cast he's had, he should be tearing it up given how promising he looked in the last two years. He's been off to a terrible start though (relative to expectation). I don't know what happened to him but he's afraid to grab a rebound for some reason. Luckily Kris Humphries has really stepped up and Favors has been a beast in his bench minutes. Humphries new found swag might very well be the result of the recent rumors that he's dating Kim Kardashian.

Brook has been touted as a legit Center of the future, but he hasn't played anything like it. His lines look eerily similar to Andrea Bargnani, only he's shooting long twos instead of threes.



http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&p1=lopezbr01&y1=2011&p2=bargnan01&y2=2011

One possible turning point I noticed was when they played the Orlando Magic the second time. After getting crushed by Dwight in their first meeting, Brook hardly ventured near the rim the second time, instead opting for longer shots, that he happend to be hitting that night. Since then he's really fell in love with playing on the perimeter and I don't think he's a good enough shooter that it's okay. All his numbers are pretty much down and he's disappointed for a team that I think should really contend for a playoff spot (lol east).

Another annoying habit of his that I've noticed is that he constantly makes himself smaller. He often crouches down and plays below the rim and it's been leading to him getting blocked a concerning amount of the time for a man his size. He usually has the size advantage and they really need him to start using it. Avery Johnson has already questioned his toughness and played Humphries extended minutes over him in one of their games and I wouldn't shocked to see that trend continue.

1 comment:

  1. Yeah, Blopez has been a minor disappointment. Favors has been pretty damn good though.

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