Latest injury hurts Nets as much as it does MarShon Brooks

Added by Darius Amos on February 1, 2012.

It doesn’t really matter who is on a team’s roster if those players can’t stay healthy. The injury bug has infested the Nets just as the team was hitting its groove. Before Sunday night’s loss to Toronto, Jersey had won four of its last six games and was on its best offensive streak of the season. But just as bad as the defeat to the Raptors was the news of its latest injury.

Rookie guard MarShon Brooks played in the Nets’ loss to Toronto on Jan. 29 but then showed up to work the next day with a swollen right pinkie toe. Tests on Brooks’ foot revealed that the toe was indeed broken, and the Nets announced that their second leading scorer would be out indefinitely.

Brooks missed the Nets’ three games prior to the loss against Toronto, sitting out with a sore Achilles’ tendon. He was listed as day-to-day going into the Raptors game but still played 22 minutes while scoring six points before breaking his toe. Early reports do not indicate that the broken toe was related to the Achilles’ problem.

Brooks joins a long list of Nets players who have spent time or are spending time on the shelf with certain ailments. The most notable of those are Brook Lopez (out for at least another two weeks), Damion James (out for the season) and Mehmet Okur (out for a week). Lopez has been working out with the team, his first action since breaking a bone in his foot during a preseason game against the Knicks in December, making his return seem likely to be sooner rather than later. Fingers crossed for sooner.

Still, the Nets are going to miss Brooks (not Brook, as in Lopez). The first-year player had recently broke into the starting lineup as was averaging close to 15 points a game – ranking second among all rookie players. He was emerging as a reliable scorer behind Deron Williams and Anthony Morrow, and he was on his way to earning a spot in the NBA Rising Stars Challenge during All-Star Weekend.

This injury hurts the Nets more than the other losses simply because of the quality minutes that Brooks offered. He trails only D-Will and Kris Humphries in minutes per game and has a player efficiency of 18.7, also third on the team. I should also mention that Brooks is a 46 percent shooter, ranking higher than Williams and Morrow. Williams said he’s interested in taking more shots for the team – I guess with Brooks out, D-Will might have no other choice.

Brooks has also become a crowd favorite, and the only thing more important than wins these days for the Nets are players that the fans actually want to watch. With that said, let’s hope that Mr. MarShon Brooks gets well and gets well soon. If D-Will wasn’t enough to attract fans to the Prudential Center, a backcourt of D-Will and Brooks should definitely draw an audience. Fingers crossed for you, MarShon.

To put everyone at ease and give hope for the rest of this season, ESPN.com’s Mike Mazzeo reported that D-Will said he expects Brooks to return around the same time as Lopez. Imagine that, Williams, Brooks and Lopez, the Nets’ Big Three on the same court at the same time.