Two Years Later, Gasol Trade Continues to Shape NBA, Spurs

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Tonight when the Spurs and Lakers renew their decade long rivalry, the defending champions will likely be without the services of their star center/power forward. But even as the Lakers are expected to miss Pau Gasol for a fifth straight game since suffering a hamstring injury, his impact still reverberates through both franchises.

When the trade was first reported nearly two years ago, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich sarcastically–and famously–questioned Grizzlies general manager Chris Wallace, calling for sweeping changes in the NBA.

“What they did in Memphis is beyond comprehension,” Popovich told SI.com then. “There should be a trade committee that can scratch all trades that make no sense. I just wish I had been on a trade committee that can scratch all trades that make no sense. I just wish I had been on a trade committee that oversees NBA trades. I would have voted no to the LA trade.”

While the Laker’s fleecing of Gasol from Memphis created no such committee or rule changes, the move has, and continues to, shape the way the league and its teams operate.

For the Spurs it was the end of the three-stars and defense philosophy that held them atop the league for most of the decade. It was also perhaps the beginning of the end for Bruce Bowen. Though age and slippage had something to do with it, the Spurs began to ween themselves off of defensive stalwarts like Bowen and Kurt Thomas in favor of the extra offense Michael Finley and Matt Bonner offered in hopes of keeping pace with the Laker’s juggernaut.

No longer could the Spurs afford to play four-on-five or three-on-five on the offensive end, as Graydon pointed out during an article discussing Bowen’s declining minutes last season:

The second reason has a lot to do with the Lakers, actually. After a 4-1 thumping in last year’s Western Conference Finals, everyone understood that the Spurs needed some tweaking if they were going to sneak past LA this season. The most decisive “tweak” Popovich made was to use more offensive minded 5-man units a greater percentage of the time. By replacing Finley with Mason, Bowen with Finley, and Oberto with Bonner, Popovich sacrificed defensive ability for offensive output at 3 of the 5 starting positions.

League-wide, one could compare the trade to the discovery of the atomic bomb in that shortly after its announcement it spurred the handful of teams with a legitimate shot at contention into a proliferation of arms. One that already crumbled one league super power and whose continued escalation could lead to the possibility of Mutual Assured Destruction amongst several contenders.

The Suns and Mavericks were the first two casualties, trading for Shaq and Jason Kidd respectively. For the Suns, it cost them their identity and ended their time as an elite team in the Western Conference. And while Mark Cuban will come up with a hundred different stats that will claim Jason Kidd is a top-five player in the league, the truth is the trade did not work out as hoped for the Mavericks, who were easily dispatched by the Hornets and Nuggets the past two years.

The arms race continued this summer. Having been so close to an NBA title, and seeing first hand how far away they actually were from the Laker’s level, the Magic went on a shopping spree, acquiring Vince Carter, Ryan Anderson, Brandon Bass (while retaining Gortat), Matt Barnes and Jason Williams.

In order to keep up with them, Boston, Cleveland and San Antonio made some notable acquisitions of their own in Rasheed Wallace, O’Neal and Richard Jefferson, all of which could have two negative effects on the league.

The first is that most NBA teams have been rendered irrelevant in the context of this season. Sure, there are some young, exciting teams on the rise, but as ESPN’s John Hollinger pointed out in Monday’s per diem, halfway through the season the league’s “power five” sit atop his power rankings.

This is a further sign, unfortunately, that 2009-10 may go down as one of the duller regular seasons in recent memory. Although the quality of play is as high as it has been in ages, we’ve had little in the way of surprises.

The second potential pitfall comes in light of the NBA’s economic woes. While large markets like Boston and Los Angeles might be able to maintain the costs of contending, what of the smaller markets like Cleveland, Orlando or San Antonio? As Graydon wrote yesterday:

Now, many franchises are not spending more. Actually, naked cost-cutting and unashamed salary dumps have become common. But as the NBA’s vulnerable franchises scramble to stay alive, it’s powerhouses have shown themselves increasingly willing to throw financial caution to the wind in the hopes of winning now. It is only a matter of time before a franchise overextends itself financially, and some combination of on-court underachievement and unforeseen economic hardship pushes the team to the brink.

Like the atomic bomb, there are some things that once released cannot be taken back. We can only accept the new realities. David Stern and NBA executives might have privately expressed initial elation at the return of Los Angeles, but eventually they will have to sit down at the negotiating table with players and owners and discuss what this arms race means to the league and owner’s costs.

Tonight the Spurs face those realities for the first time this season. And even if Gasol remains on the bench, one needs only to look at the new faces around and old faces gone to remember how one trade changed everything.

  • Ted

    Two words: Hard Cap.

  • Jason Hsieh

    The NBA’s elite have always entered into arms races. The Lakers, Celtics, and Sixers of the ‘80s were always stocking up. And it was just a few years ago that the Suns, Mavs, and Spurs would fight for key free agents (Finley, Thomas, etc). There are five top teams right now (6 if you count the Spurs). How many of those teams from the ‘80s were legitimate contenders? Less than 6. So to say the league is worse off now doesn’t seem to take history into account. There have always been teams that had no chance.

    Second, the Spurs have benefited from recent cost savings of other teams. It’s hilarious that Popovich is fine with these rules when it gets him a Finley or a Jefferson for nothing.

    The rise of the Lakers as a potential team for the ages just demonstrates that the Suns and Mavericks were never that great to begin with. They simply were pretty good at a time when the league was at a low point in terms of truly great teams. The Spurs are definitely an all time great team, just ever so slightly below the level of the Lakers if their playoff records against each other
    reveal anything.

    The great thing about the Spurs success is it shows if you are a star player but don’t crave/want the limelight of LA or NY, with good management, you can win multiple rings. Let’s see if OKC is able to do it with Durant, who seems to be similar to Duncan in disposition and hall of fame type talent.

  • SpurredOn

    It is a shame how the trade changed the entire NBA. Halfway through ’07-’08 the Lakers were the third or fourth best team in the West, still behind the veteran Spurs and upcoming Hornets. Without that trade, either the Spurs or Hornets are playing the Celtics in the Finals. And the league, despite it’s desperation for a Lakers-Celtics Finals, would be a better place. This desire for a short-term high will leave long-term damage. Thanks Stern.

  • Boss

    Why doesn’t Pop hire Bowen as an assistant?

  • Drom John

    1) The two Gasols trade made sense for Memphis at the time of the trade. Money and little brother were rational gains.

    2) Advance stats show Bowen as a good 2009 defender, the eye showed that he lost a full step from the championship over Cleveland and the last 2009 game against Cleveland. Yeah, I’m a stats guy, but the decline was major. A key stat was that Bowen put in a lot fewer minutes, so he was fresher when he was on the court. Would I like Bowen back for 10 minutes a game of Kobe harassment, yes!

    3) When the Gasol/Shaq trades came down the Spurs reacted to Shaq not Gasol. Thomas came in as a Shaq stopper. The key to the Lakers leapfrogging the Suns and Spurs was Kobe learning to play team ball.

  • John

    Not really – the Gasol trade was bigger, but how do you get a guy at the deadline to match up with someone like Gasol? The most unprecedented thing about the Gasol trade, in my opinion, was that it happened in the middle of the season. You normally see big moves like that at the end of the year.

    The thing about Gasol is that, a lot like Duncan, if he can’t kill you on his own, he’s quite willing to make a good pass to let someone else kill you. Really I think Gasol is the more dangerous part of their offense. Kobe can always go off and get his, but Gasol is the one who makes the whole offense run smoothly. Brent Barry used to do the same thing for the Spurs, if we were having an offensively challenged night he could come in for ten minutes and the ball would instantly start moving around better. That didn’t mean that Barry was better than Duncan (for example), but he was a key part of the offense. Manu works that way a bit too, even when his shot isn’t falling, the whole offense works better when he’s in than when he’s out.

    The key to the Lakers resurgence has not been that Kobe Bryant has learned to play team ball. He always knew how to do that. The key is that now he has a teammate that he trusts (Gasol) much more than he used to. If you’ve watched the last few Lakers games, you would notice that Bryant is doing the same things he used to do that people would get on him about. He clearly doesn’t trust most of his teammates to not screw up, but the key is that he does trust Gasol. I’m not the biggest fan of Kobe, but I think he gets something of a bad rap for selfishness. If I were him, and my choices were to take a contested shot or pass to Sasha Vujacic or Jordan Farmar, I’d probably take the contested shot too. If I was Kobe, I’m not sure that I would trust a lot of Lakers players either. They are not exactly awash in what I would consider stable veteran leadership, outside of Bryant and Gasol.

    Personally I agree with your larger point, complaints about the Gasol trade are a little overblown. I’ve always felt he is a fantastic player, but at the time people in Memphis were begging to get rid of him, around the country he had a “good stats on a bad team” reputation, and the fact they were a bad team was routinely pinned on him. Lots of other teams had an opportunity to get him, he was shopped for almost a year. Chicago, in particular, declined to pick him up in multiple different packages.
    Not only that, but financial moves have been around for quite a while, so it’s not exactly like it’s out of left field for a team to give up it’s franchise for very little (especially considering that most of the fans were, as I recall, booing him at the time). Make no mistake however, the Lakers gave up a pu-pu platter to get him. While Marc Gasol has turned out surprisingly well, virtually no one was even mentioning him as any kind of major part of the deal when it was announced – the deal was clearly listed everwhere as Pau Gasol for Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittendon, 2008/2010 first round draft picks, and the draft rights to Marc Gasol. When you’re put at the end of that list, it’s not a vote of confidence. The first time I heard it mentioned that Marc Gasol could be as good as his brother was almost two weeks later (and only because I was following a Euro-ball blog at the time).

  • duaneofly

    I didn’t like the Gasol trade, but I could live with it, because salary dumps happen often. However, when the Grizzles ended up trading for Zach Randolph, that made me call BS on the Gasol trade. They traded Gasol to save money, but then a year and a half later trade for a guy who makes more money, with a longer contract, but who isn’t as good.
    Hrm! Makes you wonder?
    I don’t think there is a NBA conspiracy going on, but something between LA ownership and Memphis, eh I wouldn’t put it past them.

    Also, we stole RJ for sure, but it wasn’t quite the fleecing as the Gasol trade. Even the Celtics had to give up Al Jefferson for KG. Yeah Jefferson has been injured, but no one could predict that. Just imagine how good he’d be right now if he never got injured.

    So yeah, just some thoughts I guess :P

  • Rock

    The aftermath of the Gasol trade is probably evaluated more in Memphis than in any other place.
    Essentially, the Grizzlies gave up Pau to get Marc, draft picks and cap space. After trading Darko for Zach Randolph (via Q-Rich), the de facto final score was Pau + Darko for Marc + Z-Bo + 3 first round draft picks. (And one could argue that because of the cap-space, the Grizzlies got another first rounder and Steven Hunter out of the deal)

    Right now, there is MAYBE 1 or 2 PF/C tandems that combine for more points and rebounds, than Gasol and Z-Bo.

    Without question, it has worked out well for the Grizzlies.

  • Rey

    Well, at the time of the Gasol trade, Jerry West – a Lakers legend – was an executive for the Grizzlies. I’m not really sure if there really is, but somehow I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s being paranoid about conspiracies in the NBA.

    I think the Jefferson trade is still a ripple effect of the Gasol trade. Since Pop’s recommendation that a committee overseeing trades has fallen into deaf ears, I guess the Spurs management took the attitude of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” and took Jefferson for practically peanuts, considering that the Bucks needed a salary dump.

    I’m expecting a few more big trades before the deadline. I’m sure that given the way things are going, the “arms race” will continue to proliferate, and we could see big names jumping ship (the LeBron-to-New York thing seems to become more likely as time passes by).

  • Chris W.

    duaneofly – maybe the Grizzlies were prophetic with Randolph, as the trade essentially turned Darko into a 20/11 guy. Meanwhile, Pau’s little brother isn’t too bad himself sharing the post. It’s ironic that the other guys in the Gasol-Gasol deal were (1) one of the few bigger busts than Darko (Kwame Brown) and (2) the guy who apparently emptied Gilbert Arenas’ wallet (Critterton).

    At the time of the Gasol trade I was in your boat, but in retrospect Memphis could have done a lot worse.

  • doggydogworld

    Rey, Jerry West was no longer with Memphis when they made the Gasol trade.

  • http://www.basketballinspain.com Coach

    Trade?! Gasol is a big asset and the best big man in the world. Marc Gasol, is getting there and playing big in the 2010 WC’s

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