Milwaukee Bucks: Get to know center Robin Lopez

NBA Career

The path for longevity in the NBA can be especially tough for players picked outside of the lottery, yet the 15th overall pick has acted as something of an outlier in recent years. Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kawhi Leonard, MVP and Finals MVP, respectively, were both picked at that spot. As was Robin Lopez.

Although Lopez hasn’t gone on to enjoy anywhere near as illustrious an NBA career as either of those superstars, he’s now set to enter his 12th season in the NBA, has played just under 800 games between the regular season and playoffs, and had career salary earnings of $79 million even prior to agreeing to his new contract with Milwaukee. Lopez has also never played fewer than 50 games in a season, which stands as a testament to his general good health.

For an NBA role player, that kind of longevity and consistency instantly marks success, and Lopez’s production is further proof that he’s earned it.

Robin’s career NBA averages of 9.1 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game on 53.1 percent shooting are eerily similar to his college production, which is impressive considering how rarely players can manage to translate their contributions between those two settings. Lopez’s ability to produce at that rate across just 23.3 minutes per game speaks to so much of his value too.

Still, as I’ll get to in more detail later, Lopez’s contributions aren’t necessarily measured in the box score. Robin has shown a long-running willingness to put the team first and embrace his particular role, as most recently came to the fore when he had to deal with spells of reduced playing time behind the Bulls’ young bigs.

In his first couple of seasons, Lopez’s duty was to provide energy and quality reserve minutes as he backed up Shaquille O’Neal on a Phoenix Suns team that was making its last charge at getting over the hump with Steve Nash, Grant Hill and Amar’e Stoudemire.

After four years with the Suns, Lopez moved on to the then New Orleans Hornets where he started a run of six consecutive seasons, which only ended last year, where he started every game he played in. Robin’s stay in New Orleans lasted just a single year, and he then moved on to play alongside the other new addition to the Bucks, Wesley Matthews, on Portland teams that won over 50 games in consecutive seasons.

Lopez’s time in Portland came to an end when he signed a lucrative contract with the New York Knicks, where he stayed for only a single season before being traded to Chicago as part of the Derrick Rose trade.

In the time since, Robin has taken on the role of being the adult in the room on a young, rebuilding team, and by all accounts performed admirably in that capacity. Now, in joining the Bucks, he’ll get a chance to switch back to the contention mindset that was necessary in his days with the Suns and Trail Blazers.