LAS VEGAS — Brook Lopez grew up in Southern California. He remembers the times when the LA Clippers have been terrible.
These years are lengthy gone — and Lopez is betting that even higher years are forward.
Lopez mentioned his choice to hitch the Clippers on a two-year contract price practically $18 million on Monday at NBA Summer season League in Las Vegas, raving about how far the once-woebegone franchise has come. The Clippers have posted 14 consecutive profitable seasons, the longest energetic streak within the NBA.
“It is loopy to see, nevertheless it’s very cool,” Lopez advised reporters. “Seeing the climb, the ascent, I am a Cali boy. I grew up within the valley in North Hollywood. Clearly, issues have been very totally different again then. And to see the place the Clippers have come now, it is simply astonishing. It is stunning. I am glad to be part of it. And hopefully, I might help take them even additional up.”
Lopez was born in 1988 and over the primary 25 years of his life the Clippers had the NBA’s worst general file. Within the 12 years since, they’ve the league’s second-best file behind solely Golden State. They play in a palace of a brand new area, Intuit Dome, have stars like James Harden and Kawhi Leonard, have a title-winning coach in Tyronn Lue and have one of many league’s biggest-spending and most-committed house owners in Steve Ballmer.
If all that wasn’t sufficient, the Clippers’ entrance workplace is run now by Lawrence Frank, who was Lopez’s first NBA coach with the then-New Jersey Nets.
“Positively a full-circle second,” Lopez stated.
Lopez comes again to the Los Angeles space — he performed for the Lakers in 2017-18 — after spending seven seasons with Milwaukee and serving to the Bucks win a title. He averaged 13 factors and a couple of.1 blocks per sport in these seven seasons with the Bucks, and the 37-year-old has averaged 15.9 factors in 17 NBA seasons.
He is been a starter for mainly his whole profession, although might even see a unique function with the Clippers — already a staunch defensive workforce that includes defensive participant of the 12 months candidate and fellow 7-footer Ivica Zubac because the beginning middle.
“I believe we complement one another extraordinarily effectively,” Lopez stated. “Clearly, we’ll be very massive. I believe we’ll be nice defensively, simply dominating the paint, sealing the paint off. After which offensively, we complement one another there as effectively. Unfold the ground for him, give him all of the room within the paint for him to go wild.”
There are some perks: He is going dwelling, and the well-known Disney fanatic can be taking part in his dwelling video games a few half-hour drive from Disneyland. However the largest perk, Lopez thinks, is becoming a member of a workforce that he believes is sweet sufficient to contend for a title.
“The cash’s good, however that is not what it is about for me,” Lopez stated. “I like taking part in, I like hooping, I’ve liked it since I used to be somewhat child. I watched my older brothers play. I’ve simply all the time been round it and I like profitable simply as a lot. I simply need to maintain profitable. I obtained an excellent style for it in Milwaukee and these guys are all about that right here and I am all about it. So, it is an ideal match.”
