Brook Lopez has spent the past seven years with the Milwaukee Bucks. During that time, he's cemented himself as one of the best floor-spacing big men who also provides elite-level rim-protection. Lopez reaped the rewards for altering his play style, winning a championship with Milwaukee in 2021.
However, Lopez left the Eastern Conference roster earlier this summer. He's signed a two-year contract to team up with Ty Lue and the LA Clippers. As such, Lopez will now share the court with Ivica Zubac. The duo were also teammates during their time together on the Los Angeles Lakers roster in the 2017-18 season.
As such, the notion of running Zubac and Lopez in the same lineup has begun to be floated around. Lopez's perimeter spacing means a partnership with Zubac could pay dividends.
When speaking to The Athletic's Law Murray at the Las Vegas Summer League, Lopez shared his thoughts on reviving the former partnership.
"I think we complement each other extremely well," Lopez said. "Obviously, we'll be very big. I think we'll be great defensively, you know, just dominating the paint, sealing it off. And then offensively, we complement each other there as well. You know, spread the floor for him, give him all the room and the paint for him to go off."
Lawrence Frank floated Brook Lopez-Ivica Zubac experimental lineups last week
— Law Murray (@LawMurrayTheNU) July 14, 2025
So I asked Lopez about what that would look like in 2025 after the Lakers tried Lopez and Zubac together at times when they were teammates in the 2010s pic.twitter.com/3F6GJzUwyQ
According to Cleaning the Glass, which has a built-in garbage time filter, Lopez and Zubac seldom shared the floor together with the Lakers. In total, they spent 16 possessions in the same lineup. However, the defensive numbers paint a remarkably strong picture. If you take the data and extrapolate it to create an average over 100 possessions, the Zubac and Lopez pairing would have held opponents to 57.1 points per 100 possessions. That's breathtakingly good.
There's no denying that both Lopez and Zubac are different players now. However, the league has begun trending toward double-big lineups in recent years. Therefore, Lue could be tempted to see how dominant the pairing could be on both sides of the floor.
After all, having Lopez spacing on the perimeter will provide James Harden with a reliable outlet pass option. Lopez shot 35.7% from 3-point range during his Milwaukee tenure, averaging 4.9 shots per game.
Adding Lopez to the roster has undoubtedly improved the Clippers' front-court rotation. Whether we see those improvements in the form of a super big lineup from time to time will remain to be seen. However, on paper, a pairing of Lopez and Zubac could be too good to ignore.
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