The Brooklyn Nets’ all-time franchise leading scorer is coming off a championship run with the Milwaukee Bucks. Ironically, the 33-year-old had to beat the Nets in the playoffs to get out of the East. On JJ Redick’s “The Old Man and Three” podcast, the sharpshooter put Lopez on the spot. He asked if the big man felt betrayed by Brooklyn by trading him and it was at this moment when he opened up on the situation:
“I enjoyed my time being in New Jersey and Brooklyn. I still have a few really good friends on that team. It was an incredible and fun series. They have a lot of talented guys on that team. So it definitely was special playing them in the playoffs and beating them in the playoffs. In terms of being blindsided by the trade, it caught me a little off guard, it did — You hear from the GM’s and everything like, ‘Oh no, we will not trade you, we want you to be around the young guys. Blah blah blah.’ But at the same time my agent was like, ‘Oh I heard… that they were shopping me around.’ You know stuff like that.”
Since it was the first time Lopez was getting traded in his career, things felt really different for the long time Net. The big man admitted that he knew his time with Brooklyn was over by hearing just the tone of the phone calls he was receiving around the time he was traded:
“I had a little of an idea, I was hopeful. But I guess it was my first time being traded so when I still got that call it did catch me off guard a little. You know from the tone immediately right, when you get the call you know what’s going down.”