Marc Gasol and the Lakers: questions about their role and the transfer for Pau

• NBA.The 'battle' Gasol-Ibaka, Ricky, the Hernangómez ... the Spanish, in the media spotlight of the NBA

Marc Gasol

is convinced that the

had no idea how he played when they selected him at

.

How lost would they be that they came to offer him an invitation to the preseason, which are the crumbs that the

offers to players in whom they do not have much hope.

It never crossed his mind to accept it and even less to leave

, his soul team, the one that bet on him at a difficult moment in his career and which he owns today.

later, the Lakers have no doubt what they get from Marc Gasol.

It says everything about the esteem he has earned in the NBA that, after his worst season, the champions bet on him.

But Marc Gasol has arguments to think he can still be important from a secondary role and that is what the Lakers are looking for.

The center of

has paid the bill for

, in which the longest course of his career (103 games), he was followed by the World Cup with the national team (14 games) and in a run his second season in Toronto.

He won his first champion ring and his second world gold, but his physique paid for it.

As much as it was squeezed during the hiatus due to the pandemic, the improvement in the bubble was brief.

His impact was above his numbers (7.5 points, 6.3 rebounds) but below his caliber.

Now, Marc Gasol comes to

to cover the departures of Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee with a radically different repertoire.

Size and defense

The role of Marc Gasol will be partly subordinate to that of

.

The most devastating version of these Lakers has been seen with Davis at 'five', but he does not want to submit to the physical exhaustion that doing it full time would entail.

That is why the Los Angeles team played many minutes with

as bodyguards, large quintets that imposed a very physical defense.

Gasol arrives to fill that gap with a different style.

In his prime, Marc Gasol was one of the

.

A tough pivot on the inside who could make up for what he lacked in athletic ability based on placement.

However, the years have been reducing his radius of action and not even that vision of the game is enough for him to survive back away from the rim.

Neither are the Lakers going to ask, more focused on closing the paint.

And there it does retain its impact.

Last season the Lakers were the eighth team that received the fewest points in the paint (45.8), the eighth also in accuracy of the rival (53.6%), and the fifth best within the restricted zone (60.9%).

That is where Marc Gasol will help the most.

The center of Sant Boi does not have the spark to go out to defend away from the rim, so

have to use conservative tactics: let him 'sink' into the paint and let the rest close the perimeter.

Last season the Lakers were already one of the teams that best defended penetrations and although they have lost important pieces there like

, they keep two keys (

) and others have arrived to cover that job (Wes Matthews) .

Gasol is still one of the best post defenders in the NBA, but it is a residual action in the modern NBA and the size of the Angelenos 'scared away' many opponents (only 4.2% of the opponent's possessions were low post balls ).

The Lakers have two of the best defensive correctors in the NBA, Davis and LeBron, so they can easily compensate for Marc Gasol's difficulties in correcting away from the rim and covering ground.

In return, he can focus on protecting the paint, where he remains an excellent center.

Creation and space in attack

Like so many other centers, Marc Gasol, who was once a

, migrated to the outskirts.

The current NBA premiums open the court to the maximum possible, stretch the defense to open wider routes to the basket.

They do not get balls to the low post (a very inefficient play, only 0.91 points per possession), but they attack from outside.

And

: some stand out in the continuations to the rim, others distributing from the high post and others shooting from three.

Marc crosses out the last two boxes.

During the

that the NBA keeps records (from 2013 to 2019) Marc Gasol was the NBA player who received the most balls on the elbows of the paint, his favorite place to distribute the game.

The script changed last season, when he shared the court more often with two guards (

), he had to make room for

growth

, but he is still one of the best passing centers in the league.

It is significant that two of the teams where the scorers perform the most without the ball, the

and the Lakers themselves, have been so interested in their signing.

That added to his accuracy from the outside: Gasol was one of only five centers to score 38.5% from

shooting at least three per game.

In this way, while Howard and McGee opened 'vertical space' (threat above the rim), he will do it horizontally (threat away from the rim).

A supporting role

The Lakers have also signed

, the NBA's Best Sixth Man and, probably, the player with whom Marc Gasol will dispute a position in the team's starting five.

If coach Frank Vogel is committed to maintaining a quintet more similar to last season and Harrell also prefers to maintain the status he had in the Clippers, it is likely that the Catalan is a starter.

But whether it's from the start or off the bench, he will play a supporting role like Howard or McGee did.

It is also the one he had accepted into the

and from which he can still be valuable to a team with title aspirations.

Ten years after his brother Pau completed the 'double' with the Lakers, Marc will have an unbeatable opportunity to also win gold and purple.

The reverse path

Marc Gasol has once recounted that he found out about

while shopping.

The news came from

, who that year was Pau's partner in Memphis.

"Hey, they traded your brother to the Lakers. And you know the best of everything?

."

Marc was still in the middle of the season of his explosion in the ACB and the NBA had not yet entered his plans.

It was months later, when Girona went bankrupt, that he began to think more seriously about the NBA.

Pau received the news in a similar way.

He was on leave at the time with a persistent back problem and Grizzlies general manager

brought him into the office for a day.

When he remembered that scene, Pau assured that he believed they were going to talk about his recovery.

But the conversation was different.

"

."

"Sorry what?".

"And you know best of all? That we have gotten your brother's rights."

Pau was partly 'guilty

', because he had not stopped telling them that Marc was leaving in Girona.

As it would also be 'guilty' that a few months later Michael Heisley, then the owner of the franchise, agreed to offer a generous contract to his brother.

"Michael, Marc can be better than me."

There their paths crossed, there began to draw a circle that Marc now closes in the Lakers.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

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