After arriving to the Milwaukee Bucks in free agency in the summer of 2018, Brook Lopez spent his first season in Wisconsin establishing himself as a clear focal point of the team’s reworked, league-best defense.
Averaging 2.2 blocks per game in 2018-19, Lopez set a new career-best mark, which also illustrated his wider impact in providing a particularly imposing brand of defending the rim.
With a year of thriving in that role under his belt, it always seemed like a possibility that Lopez could kick on and be even more productive as a shot-blocker this year.
Just a day before the start of the season, I made the case that whether Brook could actually go on to achieve it or not, his aim this year should be to lead the league in blocked shots.