As Brook Lopez sat on the longest 15-hour flight of his life home from Beijing on Wednesday, waiting to get back to New York for tests on his right foot, he couldn’t help but let the doomsday scenarios scroll through his brain.
“It was not a fun flight home,” Lopez said Friday at the team’s practice facility. “I wanted to set down and get to the doctor immediately. It was long for me … I stayed up all night, all the way until I got back for my appointment at 1:45 [in the afternoon] the next day at my place. I was definitely thinking about it.”
After the list of issues he’s had with the foot over the past few years, it’s hard to blame him.
This time, however, Lopez got some good news. Instead of another serious injury like the ones that prematurely halted two of his last three seasons, the images showed he had suffered a mild midfoot sprain, and he was given a recovery timeframe of 10-14 days.
“There was a lot of time to think, and it was good news,” Lopez said. “It was definitely good news.”
Lopez didn’t even have a walking boot on his foot Friday, and got in a full day of work including pool exercises and lifting weights. But the fact that the Nets are already dealing with a setback to his surgically repaired right foot after just three preseason games is jarring.
The reality facing Lopez and the Nets is every time he takes a tumble to the court – as he did during the first quarter of Wednesday’s win over the Kings when point guard Darren Collison stepped on his foot while making a drive – everyone will hold his breath and hope Lopez doesn’t have another setback.
“Any time you have guys who’ve had injuries, you look at things a little different,” Nets general manager Billy King said.
Since December 2011, Lopez has had multiple fractures of the fifth metatarsal in his right foot, which limited him to five games during the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season and 17 games last season. In the 2012-13 season, he had a previous midfoot sprain, which caused him to sit out for two weeks before returning and playing without setbacks the rest of the season.
The Nets hope for the same thing to happen this year, with Lopez returning sometime around the Oct. 29 season opener against the Celtics in Boston and providing the kind of low-post threat few teams can match when Lopez is healthy and in rhythm.
“Brook’s looked great,” Deron Williams said of Lopez’s play in the preseason. “He’s getting his rhythm back, he’s been dominant down low … there’s not a lot of people that can guard him in the post, and he’s definitely the inside presence we’ve been needing.”
King said there would be no thought to implementing any minutes restrictions for Lopez, saying that no precautionary measure – besides not playing Lopez at all – could prevent another play like the one Lopez was injured on in Wednesday’s game.
“There’s a history here with him, but it’s not something where you put him in a titanium boot and put him in a bubble,” King said. “If that’s the case, then we shouldn’t play him at all.
“It’s basketball. He’s going to play.”
The Nets were able to breathe a sigh of relief with the diagnosis of the midfoot sprain for Lopez. But it’s another example of how there will be an air of uncertainty surrounding their All-Star center – and the health of his troublesome foot – from now on.