The Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets just had a trade involving D’Angelo Russell and Brook Lopez. Tim Mozgov was also let go by the Los Angeles Lakers in order to acquire the Brooklyn Nets center.
Los Angeles Lakers praise Brook Lopez for his skills
Many speculated that the only reason why the Los Angeles Lakers let two of their players go is because they want to free some space for their salary cap.
However, the NBA team took to their Twitter account over the weekend to praise Brooks. The tweet reads: “Brook Lopez ranked second among centers in scoring last year (20.5 ppg) and led his position in made 3-pointers.”
It seems that the team wants to play better in the upcoming playoffs for the 2017-2018 NBA season since Lopez is known as one of the top offensive centers in the league. Synergy Sports Tech also noted on their June 21 tweet that only two players in the NBA scored more than 300 on post-ups and spot-ups during the 2016-2017 season. They were pertaining to Lopez and DeMarcus Cousins.
Aside from that, Lopez is also a 51 percent shooter from the field and an 80 percent shooter from the free throw line.
He also ranked 38th out of all the NBA players in the Player Efficiency Rating and scored 20.48 percent. These skills of Lopez would certainly be beneficial for the LA Lakers per the experts.
Another speculation why Lakers acquired Brook Lopez concerns Paul George
Another speculation as to why the Lakers wanted to acquire Brook Lopez had something to do with Paul George. The Indiana Pacers All-Star player reportedly expressed that he wanted to play for the Lakers and with Lopez transferring to the team that George wants to play, for now, he might be all the more interested in joining Lakers next season. George could be traded or could transfer to the Lakers via free agency. Lopez and George have similarities on how they play, and this could mean jackpot for the Los Angeles Lakers.
Brooklyn Nets now to depend heavily on Kelly Olynyk
Now that Brook is with the Lakers, Kelly Olynyk is said to take his place as the all-star center for the team. The 26-year-old showed a lot of new skills he acquired during the last season, and this could mean he could play better for Brooklyn Nets this coming 2017-2018 NBA season.
He averages 9.0 points, 4.8 rebounds and two assists per game. Although it is far from Brook’s 20.5 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 2.3 assists, many think that Olynyk could perform better in the coming months considering that he is younger than Brook.
What do you think about the trade? Will Lakers perform better or was it a wrong move? Will Nets train Olynyk for the center post? Let us know in the comments below!