Good night, Brooklyn: Lopez injury a death knell to Nets
If you thought the death knell for the Nets' season came when Paul Pierce put them up by one with 16 seconds left in overtime, only to have Evan Turner crush them with a buzzer-beating layup on Friday night in Philadelphia, think again.
The end came Saturday, when it was revealed that center Brook Lopez broke his right foot again and is out indefinitely.
The Nets are not officially ruling Lopez out for the rest of the season until more tests come back on the exact location and severity of the fracture. But according to league sources, the team isn't counting on Lopez returning this season.
Lopez fractured the fifth metatarsal in his right foot, the same bone he broke in December 2011. Lopez underwent surgery at that time and returned in February for five games before missing the rest of the lockout-shortened season with a sprained right ankle.
In June 2013, it was discovered that the screw in Lopez's surgically repaired foot had bent. He had surgery again to replace it and returned to basketball activities in August. So this time, the Nets are looking at a minimum of two months without Lopez, and given the repetitive injury history with his right foot and the circumstances surrounding their abysmal 9-17 start, likely a lot more.
Meanwhile, the Nets do not plan to dip into the slim pickings of the free-agent or D-League market for a big man. League sources say the team plans to get by with Kevin Garnett at center and Mirza Teletovic at power forward with small forward Andrei Kirilenko likely to return from a back injury either Monday or Wednesday. For depth, they'll lean even more on Mason Plumlee and seldom-used Reggie Evans.
Also, with a $102 million payroll, even a minimum-salaried player would cost many multiples of his paycheck due to luxury tax. Nobody wants to see anyone get hurt, but these are the circumstances the Nets find themselves in given their ambivalence to the financial ramifications of carrying an $87 million luxury-tax bill.
Thus, the team slogan -- 'Hello, Brooklyn' -- just became something else entirely.
Good night, Brooklyn.
Post a Comment for "Good night, Brooklyn: Lopez injury a death knell to Nets"