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I was a little nervous when I read Toronto was interested in trading for Gasol. Not giving up a first, OG, or Siakam was a huge relief but I was still concerned with his age and ability to defend, especially the perimeter.

This article is from a few months ago on how well Marc is playing defense this season. After reading it I am starting to see this to be potentially an amazing move for Toronto.

https://www.bball-index.com/marc-gasol-dpoy-candidacy/

On a side note, this kind of reminds me of when Rasheed Wallace was traded to Detroit in 2004. The Lakers were supposedly unstoppable that year with O'Neal, Kobe, Karl Malone, Gary Payton, Horace Grant, Rick Fox, Luke Walton, and Derick Fisher. But Detroit put together a tough team of guys who could play at both ends of the court and ended up shocking everyone when they took the title in only five games.

I think Masai and Webster got us another steal.

The biggest problem with JV is there aren’t a lot of players he can guard on the Bucks, Sixers and Celtics. Especially the Bucks. And those are the teams we’re obviously trying to beat.

Sometimes you need to make moves with your playoff opponents in mind and this was clearly one of them.

The_Hater wrote:The biggest problem with JV is there aren’t a lot of players he can guard on the Bucks, Sixers and Celtics. Especially the Bucks. And those are the teams we’re obviously trying to beat.

Sometimes you need to make moves with your playoff opponents in mind and this was clearly one of them.

Absolutely

Look at this list and ask yourself who you want on these guys, JV or Marc Gasol:

Brook Lopez
Joel Embiid
Al Horford
DeMarcus Cousins

hankscorpioLA wrote:

The_Hater wrote:The biggest problem with JV is there aren’t a lot of players he can guard on the Bucks, Sixers and Celtics. Especially the Bucks. And those are the teams we’re obviously trying to beat.

Sometimes you need to make moves with your playoff opponents in mind and this was clearly one of them.

Absolutely

Look at this list and ask yourself who you want on these guys, JV or Marc Gasol:

Brook Lopez
Joel Embiid
Al Horford
DeMarcus Cousins

Lopez and Horford are deadly in the pick-and-pop which Valanciunas really has no chance of guarding.

What he gives up on defence (whatever it may be), he makes up for it with his BBIQ, playmaking and shooting ability.

The_Hater wrote:The biggest problem with JV is there aren’t a lot of players he can guard on the Bucks, Sixers and Celtics. Especially the Bucks. And those are the teams we’re obviously trying to beat.

Sometimes you need to make moves with your playoff opponents in mind and this was clearly one of them.

There aren’t any he can guard if they run P&R up high. JV did the best with what he had and the coaches eventually figured out that having him drop was the most effective approach but he was still a liability on defense.

Gasol is so much more agile than JV, even at his current age, plus his extremely high basketball IQ allows him to overcome his physical limitation on both ends.

Something I am super excited for is having a big man who can actually anchor our defense because of his basketball IQ. We have had good inside defenders and rim protectors but never someone who can “quarterback” your defense the way Gasol will.

Kawhi is going to love playing with Gasol,

StopitLeo wrote:

The_Hater wrote:The biggest problem with JV is there aren’t a lot of players he can guard on the Bucks, Sixers and Celtics. Especially the Bucks. And those are the teams we’re obviously trying to beat.

Sometimes you need to make moves with your playoff opponents in mind and this was clearly one of them.

There aren’t any he can guard if they run P&R up high. JV did the best with what he had and the coaches eventually figured out that having him drop was the most effective approach but he was still a liability on defense.

Gasol is so much more agile than JV, even at his current age, plus his extremely high basketball IQ allows him to overcome his physical limitation on both ends.

Something I am super excited for is having a big man who can actually anchor our defense because of his basketball IQ. We have had good inside defenders and rim protectors but never someone who can “quarterback” your defense the way Gasol will.

Kawhi is going to love playing with Gasol,

It's like having 2 defensive Captains on the floor!

The reason why the Gasol's can still be effective at their age is that they play with a high level of IQ, they get by with their lack of athleticism

Former defensive player of the year

I know he has aged since then but he never really used his athleticism as much anways...he still has the smarts

cant imagine him being a liability

This part of the article really caught my attention. Toronto seems to do a horrible job at times of boxing out defensive rebounds.

Circling back to Gasol’s elite defensive rebounding, his hustle is making everyone’s lives better as well. Gasol is 6th in the league in box outs per game. His teammates are gathering 4.7 rebounds per game on Gasol box outs, the 9th best figure in the league. What’s more, Memphis is collecting a bodacious 92.2 percent of rebounds when Gasol boxes out.

It doesn't matter how good the defense is if you can't snag the rebound.

He's still pretty damn good. Similar to Danny, he's lost a step or two, but makes up for it with his IQ and experience.

“Memphis is one of the elite defense in the NBA and Gasol is the engine.”

Awesome. Kawhi/OG, FVV/Lowry, Green/Norm, siakam and Gasol/Ibaka will be a great defensive playoff lineup. Especially when Kawhi starts working hard.

Some scenarios that I would be worried about in the playoffs.

If Milwaukee decides to put Giannis as the 5, Gasol will be forced to sit.

Also if Boston puts al Horford in the perimeter, Gasol will be forced to stay out and open the floor for Boston’s wings to drive in.

Philly decides to pick and roll with butler/Tobias and embiid to force a switch. The quicker butler and Harris will easily pass a slow footed Gasol. I’m glad we have Kawhi but he will be guarding Simmons. Kawhi/Gasol defense on a pick and roll will be hard to figure out.

Huffman wrote:This part of the article really caught my attention. Toronto seems to do a horrible job at times of boxing out defensive rebounds.

Circling back to Gasol’s elite defensive rebounding, his hustle is making everyone’s lives better as well. Gasol is 6th in the league in box outs per game. His teammates are gathering 4.7 rebounds per game on Gasol box outs, the 9th best figure in the league. What’s more, Memphis is collecting a bodacious 92.2 percent of rebounds when Gasol boxes out.

It doesn't matter how good the defense is if you can't snag the rebound.

well damn, that's gonna be huge for us because rebounding has been a problem when Serge is at the 5.


Just another reason to have Gasol/Siakam starting and closing out games together

hankscorpioLA wrote:

The_Hater wrote:The biggest problem with JV is there aren’t a lot of players he can guard on the Bucks, Sixers and Celtics. Especially the Bucks. And those are the teams we’re obviously trying to beat.

Sometimes you need to make moves with your playoff opponents in mind and this was clearly one of them.

Absolutely

Look at this list and ask yourself who you want on these guys, JV or Marc Gasol:

Brook Lopez
Joel Embiid
Al Horford
DeMarcus Cousins

It's not just about who we want guarding our opponents, but the fact that they have to guard as well

Psubs wrote:

StopitLeo wrote:

The_Hater wrote:The biggest problem with JV is there aren’t a lot of players he can guard on the Bucks, Sixers and Celtics. Especially the Bucks. And those are the teams we’re obviously trying to beat.

Sometimes you need to make moves with your playoff opponents in mind and this was clearly one of them.

There aren’t any he can guard if they run P&R up high. JV did the best with what he had and the coaches eventually figured out that having him drop was the most effective approach but he was still a liability on defense.

Gasol is so much more agile than JV, even at his current age, plus his extremely high basketball IQ allows him to overcome his physical limitation on both ends.

Something I am super excited for is having a big man who can actually anchor our defense because of his basketball IQ. We have had good inside defenders and rim protectors but never someone who can “quarterback” your defense the way Gasol will.

Kawhi is going to love playing with Gasol,

It's like having 2 defensive Captains on the floor!

There was a quote from Kawhi after a game about how we don't communicate enough on defense.

Danny has been on enough well structured teams that he does a lot of instinctual stuff on D. Lowry does a lot instinctual stuff as well (usually some savvy homerun plays). But with Ibaka, JV and Siakam, we didn't get a lot of that extra defensive savviness. They made regular positional plays.

With Gasol, we should be getting that extra communication and I'm hoping Siakam is the beneficiary of that quarterbacking and it ups his awareness. Something we've lacked in the frontcourt for a long time.

Great article except it is from three months ago before Memphis fell apart.

You’re worried that a Centre can’t defend on the perimeter?

And what...? Did JV make you less worried in that aspect. I don’t even know what’s wrong with this board sometimes


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CDN Uprising wrote:

hankscorpioLA wrote:

The_Hater wrote:The biggest problem with JV is there aren’t a lot of players he can guard on the Bucks, Sixers and Celtics. Especially the Bucks. And those are the teams we’re obviously trying to beat.

Sometimes you need to make moves with your playoff opponents in mind and this was clearly one of them.

Absolutely

Look at this list and ask yourself who you want on these guys, JV or Marc Gasol:

Brook Lopez
Joel Embiid
Al Horford
DeMarcus Cousins

It's not just about who we want guarding our opponents, but the fact that they have to guard as well

This is a popular argument, but unfortunately it doesn’t really work that way in reality. The opponents listed above can absolutely guard JV in the post effectively but JV cannot guard those same players on the perimeter. And in 2019 opposing coaches run sets to exploit this.

ratul wrote:Great article except it is from three months ago before Memphis fell apart.

The point of bringing peoples attention to the article was to show that Gasol can still defend at a fairly high level. In fact, the article was claiming that Gasol was playing DPOY type defense into December.

I love JV, but no one has ever mentioned him playing DPOY level defense.