Chicago Bulls center Robin Lopez is smack dab in the middle of a cold war between teammates Nikola Mirotic and Bobby Portis, who remain on the outs after the incident which left Mirotic hospitalized following a punch from Portis in practice.

Apparently, Lopez knows exactly what his two teammates are going through as the problem of being on the same team as someone he isn’t particularly fond of hits him very close to home.

In typical Robin Lopez fashion, he’s still managing to crack some jokes in the midst of what should be a troubling and serious situation between his two teammates. Given all that’s happened between Portis and Mirotic, it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that the two can play on the same team anymore.

Upon closer inspection, though, there is probably a good deal of truth in Lopez’s statement about his brother Brook. While sibling bonds can be stronger than a normal relationship with a teammate in a positive way, they can also be equally magnified in a negative way at times.

It’s not hard to imagine the Lopez brothers really getting on each other’s nerves playing with one another during their youth and in college at Stanford. But then again, that probably happens with other players on the team. The trick is to simply learn how to deal with those relationships and continue to play well despite those tough times.