Twin Towers: Is Brook Lopez blowing his big contract on comic books!?!

Willamette Week, a local paper in Portland, is in love with the Blazers and interviewed Robin Lopez in the current issue. While most of the interview is about Robin and the Blazers, there was a lot about the collective mind of the Lopez twins, including a claim, hopefully a joke, that Brook Lopez is blowing much of his $60 million contract on comic books.

Here's the exchange...

How many comics do you own?

Not as many as Brook. He’s pretty much collecting everything DC Comics publishes right now. I have two or three titles I’ve collected and tried to complete those runs.

You’ve said since Brook signed such a huge contract with the Nets, he’s now just blowing it on comics.

With comic books, for the most part, it’s not a costly addiction. It’s not like Fabergé eggs.

Robin also talks about how the two brothers' interest in basketball and art both grew out of family connections.

Did basketball interest you first or did everything come at once?

It was definitely a concurrent development. I was kind of born into basketball, because my older brothers played. And then, likewise, I was also born into the art world. My aunt’s an architect, and my grandma, as a Christmas gift, she would always give us an art box.

My grandma in Fresno, when we lived in L.A., she had a huge library—I think it was the biggest library of children’s books in the Central Valley. There was this huge collection for us, and every time we went there it was just a treasure trove.

In fact, he says the twins interest in comics and art may have hurt them in the 2008 Draft when Brook #10 and Robin #15.  (The Nets considered both that night, before settling on Brook.)

Pro athletes often show a single-minded devotion to their sport. Do your broad interests ever alienate you from other athletes?

There were times during the draft where people were questioning myself and Brook’s dedication to basketball just because we had outside interests, which is pretty ridiculous when you think about it.