What's the highest possible ranking for Pau Gasol, all-time?

[SHAQ32]

Pau had a nice ~15 year run as an all-star caliber player, with some all league teams thrown in there.

He doesn't have the accolades like some of the other hof big men, but taking his abilities and impact into account, what' the highest possible rank you could give him without being called crazy?

[No-more-rings]

Maybe like 45-50 range.

[AdagioPace]

Gasol was voted 48 in the last top 100. I would say as high as Reggie (42nd) and Pierce (43rd) which are good examples of all-nba level longevity and portability for championship purposes.


and if you don't like monodimensional scorers like Gervin then sky is the limit...... (kidding,sky is not the limit..maybe barely inside the top 40)

[trex_8063]

For me probably somewhere in the high-30's (in the neighborhood of players like Reggie Miller, Rick Barry, and Paul Pierce). Speaking for myself, I have a hard(ish) time arguing him outside the top 50 at this point (I was arguing for him in the early 40's of the last project). He's had a pretty fantastic career.

[HeartBreakKid]

Top 50 guy, I take into account international play if the level of play is high enough. I have a hard time putting him in the top 40, as there are usually still superstars there.

Top 50 he's competing against the Ray Allen's of the world, in which case he is comfortably better in my opinion.

[Jaivl]

Don't really think you can go higher than ~40 or so. Maybe if you really value FIBA play.

[udfa]

Top-30 even without international play. Pau has always been terribly underrated due to his unassertive style. He was a close 1b to Kobe during their b2b titles. Unfortunately his career happened to coincide with the golden age of power forwards (Duncan, Dirk, KG, Amare, Bosh, Wallace, Boozer, Aldridge, West, Millsap, Jamison, Love, Lee, Lewis) so he ended up with fewer all-star and all-NBA awards than if he had been born just 5 years later.

[lavta]

Top 50 guy, I take into account international play if the level of play is high enough. I have a hard time putting him in the top 40, as there are usually still superstars there.

You shouldn't really. International basketball isn't consisted of some inferior versions of NBA to different degrees, you are talking about a section of basketball with a completely different ruleset than somehow all different NBA rulesets, on & off court structure, some normative differences, bigger pool of teams/players/coaches/leagues/competitions/different kind of competitions and an older basketball history than the NBA in Europe specifically. So you shouldn't because all these differences but primarily the differences of rulesets impact some players way too much and Pau is one of the primary examples of that. He's just a different level of player on international basketball, basically Nowitzki tier player (Nowitzki stays basically at same tier of performance in FIBA and the NBA, one of the majority that doesn't get affected in terms of level of performance when switching between those two) even though we have more data for Pau. Pau basically reached Sabonis tier in multiple tournaments. We don't see many of the all time greats in that many tournaments throughout their careers with FIBA plus Pau's brief Barça career adds onto that data under FIBA rules playing at non-FIBA competitions even. So it's not fair comparative analysis to account for Pau's international play that way and it's certainly not a "level of play, high enough" thing. Level of play basically doesn't matter where every structural difference is way more important & bigger than level of play difference.

And even if you did that, putting him merely at top 50 and having a hard time putting him at 40s is a sure fire indication of not underrating his international level of play but simply an indication of being completely ignorant to it even if accounting for that would be unfair to all the players we haven't seen enough of under those structures and rulesets who are mostly American all time NBA greats.

[Dr Positivity]

Fringe top 40 just because he has better longevity than some other guys in that range. There's no way he's in the top 30.

[Dr Positivity]

Top-30 even without international play. Pau has always been terribly underrated due to his unassertive style. He was a close 1b to Kobe during their b2b titles. Unfortunately his career happened to coincide with the golden age of power forwards (Duncan, Dirk, KG, Amare, Bosh, Wallace, Boozer, Aldridge, West, Millsap, Jamison, Love, Lee, Lewis) so he ended up with fewer all-star and all-NBA awards than if he had been born just 5 years later.

One of the problems for Pau is he never had a kick ass peak season like Pippen's first year without Jordan or McHale's 26ppg year. It was set up for him in 2011 to take over most valuable Laker from Kobe like George has from Westbrook this year and he did in advanced stats, but he was still too unselfish to average more than 19/10, plus he faded in the playoffs

[Dr Positivity]

Top 50 he's competing against the Ray Allen's of the world, in which case he is comfortably better in my opinion.

You think he's comfortable better than Allen? I don't

[SHAQ32]

Top 50 he's competing against the Ray Allen's of the world, in which case he is comfortably better in my opinion.

You think he's comfortable better than Allen? I don't

Yeah I think relative to positions, Ray is higher up the totem pole than Pau.

[sp6r=underrated]

My only issue is with the word comfortable. They're hard players to debate because their roles were so different but I don't think there is a clear difference. The farther down the list you go the more players are in range for a spot. The gap between the 5th best player of all time and the 20th is real. The gap between the 40th and 55th is quite smaller.

[HeartBreakKid]

Top 50 he's competing against the Ray Allen's of the world, in which case he is comfortably better in my opinion.

You think he's comfortable better than Allen? I don't

Everyone certainly thought so when they met in the finals. Pau Gasol was probably a top ten player in his peak, Ray Allen was never that good and their primes overlapped.

Ray Allen might have been a better scorer, but Pau Gasol played a more impactful position and beats him out in passing, rebounding and defense (Ray Allen is really not a good defender at all).

Ray Allen just has a game that people like to glorify.

Pau Gasol vs Pierce and Allen is not much of an argument to me. It's not like Pierce and Allen were washed up around the time the Celtics and Lakers were winning championships either.

[GSP]

Top 40 seems crazy to me. Even on those Memphis teams they were winning on their defense mainly on the perimeter and many metrics point to Battier being by far the biggest driver. Pau was never a great defender specially in space and coming out to defend the perimeter or pickandroll. When Battier wasnt on the team anymore they dropped to the worst defense and won 22 games with the 2nd worst Srs despite Pau playing 59 games

I feel Pau got a big boost playing with Kobe and how well he was able to bring out the best in him. Even that year in 2013 when Kobe got injured Pau looked bad when they got swept the 1st round. And Pau is a horrible player these days and hasnt been a good player for 3 seasons now including this one

He was a good player in his prime. Very good and maybe top 10 at his peak (top 15 for sure) but I dont see him as a top 50 player

[trex_8063]

Top 50 he's competing against the Ray Allen's of the world, in which case he is comfortably better in my opinion.

You think he's comfortable better than Allen? I don't

Yeah I think relative to positions, Ray is higher up the totem pole than Pau.

Probably, but I don't think that prohibits him from ranking higher than Ray all-time. My top 50 is not 10 PG's, 10 SG's, 10 SF's, etc. Centers (and to lesser degree PF's) form a disproportionate number of my top 50 (or 100, or 150, or whatever). Historically, it's a big man's game. Speaking for myself, my ATL reflects that.

[HeartBreakKid]

Ray Allen is closer to being the GOAT sg than Pau is the GOAT pf, but SG is the least impactful position and has had the least impactful players. The top 10 SG all time list looks really poor compared to a top 10 all time power forward list, and it gets even worse if you go to top 20, 30, etc. Pau Gasol can also play center which is the most impactful position in basketball.

[Dr Positivity]

Everyone certainly thought so when they met in the finals. Pau Gasol was probably a top ten player in his peak, Ray Allen was never that good and their primes overlapped.

Allen is 32 in 08 season and sacrificed some of his game in my opinion to fit on the Celtics, they needed him as a floor spacer more than some of his on ball skills he had in Seattle. I also think Allen has a solid case for being a top 10 player at one point, in 2001 he finishes 3rd in WS and 7th in BPM and was the best player on a Finals contender

[G35]

I think people only remember Pau when he went to the Lakers and forward. Not how things were when he was the #1 guy in Memphis.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2757808-ten-years-after-pau-gasol-trade-to-lakers-changed-nba-deal-makes-sense-now

The backstory

Pau Gasol had grown into Memphis' best player after being selected third overall in the 2001 NBA draft. The 7-footer from Spain won the 2002 Rookie of the Year award, became an All-Star and helped lead the Grizzlies to their first playoff appearance in franchise history.

From 2004-06, the Grizzlies won at least 45 games every year and qualified for the postseason. However, once they got there, they stumbled, failing to win a single playoff game in 12 tries.

The direction of the franchise took a dark turn in the 2006 offseason when Gasol fractured the fifth metatarsal in his left foot while playing for Spain in the FIBA World Championships. Without Pau for the first 22 games that fall, the Grizzlies began the year 5-17. Gasol returned from his injury, but Memphis could never get back on track. The team dropped from second in defensive efficiency the previous year to dead last, per NBA.com, as it finished the season an NBA-worst 22-60.

Things didn't improve the following season under head coach Marc Iavaroni, and new Grizzlies general manager Chris Wallace sensed a need to shake things up. "We tried to bolster [Pau], do some things with the roster, make it a little bit better for him," Wallace told B/R. "But it was obvious to me by the Christmas holidays of [2007] that we weren't going anywhere. I knew we weren't going to be a playoff team that year, but then we were really mired in a bad spot.

Pau was winless in the playoffs in Memphis. Could not win one playoff game in three straight seasons. Memphis was trending down with Pau and Pau didn't want to be there anymore.


https://www.nba.com/lakers/news/080201gasol_trade.html

Gasol, a 7th year player out of Spain, is averaging 18.9 points, 8.8 rebounds and 1.44 blocked shots per game this season. The 27 year old 7’0” forward/center has career averages of 18.8 points and 8.6 rebounds. A 2006 NBA All-Star and 2001-02 NBA Rookie of the Year, Gasol also won a gold medal with Spain at the 2006 FIBA World Championships while being named tournament MVP.

Pau was an all star talent but he did not have the personality/temperament to be a #1 franchise player. He was putting up 19 and 9...those are Zbo numbers. Now, I like Pau and he fit in perfectly alongside a player as headstrong as Kobe. He was a great #2 guy but he never was able to carry a team like Ray had to carry teams in Milwaukee and Seattle and getting judged for it.....

[No-more-rings]

Pau Gasol in the playoffs pre-Lakers:

12 games 20/6.4/2.7 53.7 ts% 22.9 PER 1.8 BPM

Ray Allen in the playoffs pre Celtics

37 games: 24.9/4.8/4.8 60.2 ts% 23.6 PER 6.6 BPM

Pau’s sample may be small but still, Allen appears to be a strong playoff performer, while Pau not so much prior to LA. Also I can’t imagine how defense would be brought up as a major advantage for Pau, in his Memphis years he was putting up negative and neutral DRAPMs.

Edit: Hell even looking at 09 and 10 he was a negative those years as well.