Brook Lopez’s start with the LA Clippers is making the summer call to keep him look a whole lot smarter.
That was not the reaction most people had when the Clippers exercised his team option. Given his age and the obvious rough edges in his game, plenty of observers were stunned LA chose to bring him back.
Last season only fed that skepticism. But two games into the new season, Lopez has flipped the conversation fast.
In the Clippers’ second game in Los Angeles, the 38-year-old delivered 22 points, 4 rebounds and 3 blocks in 20 minutes, finishing 8-for-9 from the floor and scoring the second-most points on the team. That came right after opening night, when he put up 17 points and 11 rebounds in a win over the Sacramento Kings.
The biggest surprise is that Lopez hasn’t merely been useful. He’s been spotless.
That’s a sharp turn from last season, when he averaged 8.5 points, 3.6 rebounds and shot 42.8% from the field. Based on that stretch, the Clippers could have let him walk without much pushback. Instead, they stuck with him, and early on that choice looks like one of their better moves of the summer.
Against Sacramento, Lopez helped the Clippers open up a 25-point lead. He was active around the rim, spaced the floor, made the right reads from the high post and continued to protect the basket at a high level.
The Clippers have also leaned on him more than expected. In the Battle of L.A., Lopez became the offense’s focal point for much of the time he was on the floor.
With the ball in his hands in the half-court, he helped set the table for the offense and made things easier for teammates such as Derrick Jones Jr. and Kris Dunn. That mattered in a tight game against the Lakers, especially with Darius Garland turning the ball over nine times and Rui Hachimura missing nine of his 14 shots.
So far, Lopez has been excellent on both ends, and he’s giving the Clippers exactly what they need: a veteran presence who can help them hang with talented, balanced teams.
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Leonard has long been able to separate himself from that chapter, taking only a minor fine while the Clippers absorbed the real fallout and he moved on to Toronto. But any time his name gets dragged back into the scandal, it reopens an old wound for the organization and keeps the focus on how much damage that episode did, even as Leonard has tried to put it behind him. [Read more 🡒]