Los Angeles Lakers: It’s time to end the Brook Lopez experiment
Whether Lakers Nation wants to accept the reality or not, the California-raised center’s time in Los Angeles needs to end today.
Brook Lopez was an elemental key to the Los Angeles Lakers offseason. I was and still am a huge supporter of his style of play. However, his ankle injury against the Golden State Warriors may have placed him in an uncomfortable position. Lopez is out for the remainder of the month, which hurts his stock, overall.
The Lakers traded for Lopez on the belief he could be a huge instrument in a Lonzo Ball-centric offense. General manager Rob Pelinka traded away Timofey Mozgov and budding star D’Angelo Russell for one year of Lopez’s services and the No. 27 overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft. It hasn’t panned out.
Lopez has dropped off significantly from his previous campaign with the Brooklyn Nets. His averages have plummeted from his career averages.
After scoring over 20 points for two straight seasons, Lopez’s playing time, points per game, and field goal percentage have collapsed to 22.4 minutes, 12.8 points, and 29.7 percent on 3-pointers.
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It is intriguing, to say the least. Nets coach Kenny Atkinson encouraged Lopez to shoot more threes, and his efficiency skyrocketed as a result.
However, it is worth mentioning that Lakers head coach Luke Walton has struggled to figure out the five-spot vacuum with Lopez out. Andrew Bogut, Julius Randle, Larry Nance, Jr, and even Kyle Kuzma rotated in-and-out of the center position.
It may be to Randle’s advantage with Lopez out. Randle fits the small ball five almost perfectly. He has the skillset of a point forward, a post game to match, and has improved on defense. In around the same time-frame as Lopez (22 MPG), Randle is averaging 12 points on 55.8 percent from the field as the backup center.
Walton failed to use Lopez correctly by slashing his minutes and opportunities. Lopez would be better suited off on a franchise that likes to stretch the offense, or possibly a struggling team needing to find an offensive spark.
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Either Walton increases the usage of Lopez on offense, or Pelinka again ships off Lopez to gain assets or make room for the impending 2018 offseason.