Marc Gasol passing game

[DarryWalker]

I've been watching Raptor games and noticed one thing Gasol does remarkably well. Try and finesse a pass instead of shooting the ball or taking it in the post. He always looks for that extra pass and tries to make a nice pass to ry and look good. What happens every time? The player receiving the pass gets the ball and forces up a shot They miss every time. He's so focused on looking to make a nice pass than taking an actual shot. Has anyone else caught on? His extra pass actually screws everyone rythym

[Kabookalu]

So he should just ISO every time?

[DarryWalker]

He needs to stop emphasizing on that extra pass I've watched siakiam and og shoot countless bricks because they're like wtf?

It is like he is counting assists and not actually taking shot/opportunity when it is there.

Mods do not close my thread this not another rebounding vs passing thread.

[Anatomize]

1 post, that is all.

[Raps in 4]

JV stans making burner accounts now to post their nonsense.

[DarryWalker]

JV stans making burner accounts now to post their nonsense.

Instead of derailing the thread and posting your non sense. If I'm not saying what is true why are his field goal attempt down 5 a game since being traded to Toronto and assists down 1 a game as well. Cannot wait till tonight game to prove my point

[LJKO]

He needs to stop emphasizing on that extra pass I've watched siakiam and og shoot countless bricks because they're like wtf?

It is like he is counting assists and not actually taking shot/opportunity when it is there.

Mods do not close my thread this not another rebounding vs passing thread.

Sorry but Gasol is a passing big, if he giving you the ball get ready to shoot because he expects you to shoot it without hesitation. As for OG and Siakim bricking is because of them hesitating . Their next step is to learn how to catch and shoot

[Cael]

JV stans making burner accounts now to post their nonsense.

Instead of derailing the thread and posting your non sense. If I'm not saying what is true why are his field goal attempt down 5 a game since being traded to Toronto and assists down 1 a game as well. Cannot wait till tonight game to prove my point

Cause he's not the number 1 option anymore. Smart guy.

[StopitLeo]

He needs to stop emphasizing on that extra pass I've watched siakiam and og shoot countless bricks because they're like wtf?

It is like he is counting assists and not actually taking shot/opportunity when it is there.

Mods do not close my thread this not another rebounding vs passing thread.

It’s not the extra pass. Gasol literally looks for the pass first when he gets the ball before considering his own offense. It is incumbent on his teammates to recognize this and be ready to catch the ball and do something useful with it.

It will take a few reps for each player to get used to this but I think for most guys once they get caught off guard by a Gasol pass once they will be ready in the future. Seems to be that way for Norm and Fred after their first games with Gasol.

Gasol knows he has the skills to put the ball in the basket. He also knows he has the more useful skill of being able to help his teammates get going by getting them better/easier shots. When he is a threat to hit everyone else on the floor who is open it creates spacing because the defense basically can’t leave home on anyone.

[hankscorpioLA]

JV stans making burner accounts now to post their nonsense.

Instead of derailing the thread and posting your non sense. If I'm not saying what is true why are his field goal attempt down 5 a game since being traded to Toronto and assists down 1 a game as well. Cannot wait till tonight game to prove my point

Holy crap! You are right! His shots and assists are both down. It's almost like he's playing 1/3rd fewer minutes per game!

[ruckus]

JV stans making burner accounts now to post their nonsense.

Instead of derailing the thread and posting your non sense. If I'm not saying what is true why are his field goal attempt down 5 a game since being traded to Toronto and assists down 1 a game as well. Cannot wait till tonight game to prove my point

Holy crap! You are right! His shots and assists are both down. It's almost like he's playing 1/3rd fewer minutes per game!

It's also a big adjustment for the team to make. Look at the bigs they've had to play with this season. Ibaka rarely passes back out. Monroe rarely passed back out. JV wasn't a "pass it back out" type of guy.

They aren't used to playing with a big like Gasol yet. They just need time on the court together.

[Boogie!]

JV stans making burner accounts now to post their nonsense.

Odd that people can't just admit that regardless of jv, gasol is on the decline and doesn't make us better. I said it from the time the trade was made, it only makes sense if we followed it up aggressively to acquire shooters, but instead we surrounded him with mccaw, Powell, OG... Failed trade on so many levels. At least we still have the saviour fvv.

[Jcity08]

Gasol is playing a different role on Toronto than in Memphis, he's a pass first big playing behind Kawhi(number 1 option), Siakam(number 2 option), Lowry(3 option). The Raptors don't need him to hold the ball and rack up field goal attempts. His primary job is to space the floor and keep the ball moving on offense.

Some of the strawman arguments are getting absurd, he doesn't have to be doing everything on the court to be a success on this team, he just has to excell at the role he's been given and thus far he's done that.

If you want a traditional back to the basket big, who is given the green light to be the number1 scoring option on the team, there are plenty of other teams in the league that can satisfy that thirst.

[remiga007]

Threads like these make all of fans, who are reasonably critical of current team's and Gasol's level of play, look bad.

[Yeezus_]

JV stans making burner accounts now to post their nonsense.

Odd that people can't just admit that regardless of jv, gasol is on the decline and doesn't make us better. I said it from the time the trade was made, it only makes sense if we followed it up aggressively to acquire shooters, but instead we surrounded him with mccaw, Powell, OG... Failed trade on so many levels. At least we still have the saviour fvv.

But Gasol is starting and playing alongside 3 perimeter players who shoot 36%+ from 3 + Siakam who is shooting liek 45% from the corner 3.

Gasol definitely makes us better and provides us more playmaking when times get tough, we'll see the true benefit of that in the playoffs.

[HeadtopChunes]

JV stans making burner accounts now to post their nonsense.

Odd that people can't just admit that regardless of jv, gasol is on the decline and doesn't make us better. I said it from the time the trade was made, it only makes sense if we followed it up aggressively to acquire shooters, but instead we surrounded him with mccaw, Powell, OG... Failed trade on so many levels. At least we still have the saviour fvv.

But Gasol is starting and playing alongside 3 perimeter players who shoot 36%+ from 3 + Siakam who is shooting liek 45% from the corner 3.

Gasol definitely makes us better and provides us more playmaking when times get tough, we'll see the true benefit of that in the playoffs.

Also, we are #1 in the league for 3P% since the Gasol trade.

Shooting 40% from deep at 34 attempts a game.

[StopitLeo]

Gasol is playing a different role on Toronto than in Memphis, he's a pass first big playing behind Kawhi(number 1 option), Siakam(number 2 option), Lowry(3 option). The Raptors don't need him to hold the ball and rack up field goal attempts. His primary job is to space the floor and keep the ball moving on offense.

Some of the strawman arguments are getting absurd, he doesn't have to be doing everything on the court to be a success on this twam, he just has to excell at the role he's been given and thus far he's done that.

If you want a traditional back to the basket big, who is given the green light to be the number1 scoring option on the team, there are plenty of other teams in the league that can satisfy that thirst.

People get caught up in basic boxscore numbers without recognizing the role change and minutes reduction. Yes, Jonas is putting up 19/10 in Memphis but his rate of production is the same as it was here in Toronto.

If the JV fans actually looked at Gasol’s per 36 or per 100 stats they would see that Gasol is basically putting up the best numbers of his career with Toronto. His 3P%, assists, rebounding, blocks, steals, etc....are all above his career best. His 2FG% is down (still good for 4th best of his career and his eFG% right now would be 2nd) and his FT% is down (but still above his career average in Memphis) but otherwise he is playing at a very high level.

[Anatomize]

JV stans making burner accounts now to post their nonsense.

Odd that people can't just admit that regardless of jv, gasol is on the decline and doesn't make us better. I said it from the time the trade was made, it only makes sense if we followed it up aggressively to acquire shooters, but instead we surrounded him with mccaw, Powell, OG... Failed trade on so many levels. At least we still have the saviour fvv.

Except he's already made us better and that's proven statistically. Not sure where you've been but there have been a multitude of stats posted here over the past week of how much we've improved in several 3 point and assist/passing categories after the trade.

[Anatomize]

Gasol is playing a different role on Toronto than in Memphis, he's a pass first big playing behind Kawhi(number 1 option), Siakam(number 2 option), Lowry(3 option). The Raptors don't need him to hold the ball and rack up field goal attempts. His primary job is to space the floor and keep the ball moving on offense.

Some of the strawman arguments are getting absurd, he doesn't have to be doing everything on the court to be a success on this twam, he just has to excell at the role he's been given and thus far he's done that.

If you want a traditional back to the basket big, who is given the green light to be the number1 scoring option on the team, there are plenty of other teams in the league that can satisfy that thirst.

People get caught up in basic boxscore numbers without recognizing the role change and minutes reduction. Yes, Jonas is putting up 19/10 in Memphis but his rate of production is the same as it was here in Toronto.

If the JV fans actually looked at Gasol’s per 36 or per 100 stats they would see that Gasol is basically putting up the best numbers of his career with Toronto. His 3P%, assists, rebounding, blocks, steals, etc....are all above his career best. His 2FG% is down (still good for 4th best of his career and his eFG% right now would be 2nd) and his FT% is down (but still above his career average in Memphis) but otherwise he is playing at a very high level.

I pointed out his per 36 twice in another thread yesterday. The ONLY difference is that he's averaging the lowest FGA he's had in 10 seasons! (11.1 FGA per 36), otherwise he's getting career highs in assists and boards, and he's right inline with all categories (including scoring if you bump up the FGA).

What happens is most people have never seen him play and they just now watched some highlights and sporadically have seen him on nationally televised games, I owned the guy in fantasy and he's one of my favorite players so I always tuned into Memphis games. This is who he's always been. If anything he needs to get a little bit more physical but I think that will come playoff time, there's no incentive for him to do that because our surrounding cast is much better than what he had in Memphis.

He can just relax here and play a team based role, and even with that he's putting up great per-minute numbers.

It's like these people don't understand that he's regularly playing anywhere from 18-26 minutes. This guy was a 33-35 minute guy most of his career, he's in a timeshare now where he's mostly being asked to be a facilitator and his value comes in intangibles (pick setting, positional defense/verticality defense, deflections/steals, timely blocks, and the presence of being on the 3 point line pulls other bigs out which spreads the floor and helps our other players drive and kick and move the ball).

They just see "JV get 20 point, Gasol get 8, JV better". They don't look beyond that. It would make Corey Maggette look like MJ (and no I'm not saying JV gets empty stats). Gasol's biggest value to this team is as stated above, the perceived threat of having him on the 3 point line completely stretches out the defense and forces all 5 players to be out on the perimeter. A Brook Lopez can't dive and hang back on a pick because Gasol will burn him, which means you get lots of mismatches and switches and much more open looks both inside and outside as a result. JV could never offer this, teams were willing to let Ibaka and JV pop as long as the rest of the team was stagnant, it was the best choice from that perspective. You can't do that with Gasol because he'll bury 3's.


People naturally gravitate to cutting around him, I've seen Siakam/Powell/Lowry regularly make backdoor cuts when playing 2 man games with him or when he's in the high/low post, and he gives them great looks.

There is also a value which you won't understand unless you've actually played basketball, and this will be hard to fathom for people who only observe and don't play. If you've ever played with someone on your team you're comfortable with, and is unselfish, they actually give you this boost of confidence and you make shots at a higher rate. I've played with selfish people and people that I dislike and it doesn't matter if I get good looks, it doesn't go in nearly at the same rate as when I'm with a teammate I enjoy playing with and have chemistry with. Gasol has that type of pull/aura, quick passes engage players, it gets them primed and ready and in shot-mode already, as opposed to sitting with your hands down in the corner watching DeMar post and repost for 20 seconds and then you finally get your shot and people are surprised you're clanking it.

Momentum/flow is really important, it's why motion offenses are so successful with crisp/quick passing.

[macNcheese3]

Gasol will come alive in the post season.