Report: Spurs interested in pursuing Marc Gasol to replace Tim Duncan

[Russ]

I can't see him and Duncan playing together, but if course he'd be a great get for the team.

I think they'd be perfect together. (Not that it will happen.)

[AFBlue]

I think they'd be perfect together. (Not that it will happen.)

Teams would employ small ball against them too successfully, forcing Pop to go with one over the other for stretches. Splitter works next to Tim because of his mobility on the perimeter. Gasol doesn't have the same mobility.

[RD2191]

fat gasol is a choker.

[Raven]

aldridge/gasol/monroe + kawhi + green + cojo and it would be a great offseason

[N0 LyF3 ScRuB]

fat gasol is a choker.

They just don't have enough offense. Not his fault.

[mudyez]

Spurs are the pretty girl at the office who has all the wives worried.

While actual beeing the best friend, which would like to be with her, but never gets her, coz of some steroid guy.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Spurs are the pretty girl at the office who has all the wives worried.

Spurs are the guy that invested wisely in particular assets and won repeatedly in life but never had the extra cash to go look for strange. Then his wife dies and capital is freed up to invest again.

[Clipper Nation]

They just don't have enough offense. Not his fault.

Gasol allowing a small forward to shut him down was part of the reason why they didn't have enough offense.

[coachmac87]

If you don't think Gasol would be a good fit you're a ing idiot and don't know bout basketball

[100%duncan]

Quitter

[Dverde]

I'd rather see a Boris/Gasol combo then a Aldridge/Splitter combo.

[Outlier]

The team that usually starts with the best record never ends with the best record. They will have
another exit in the playoffs and Gasol will think twice about staying. Likely be better? Thats always said about the Grizzlies.

Lol I was right.

[tholdren]

Splitter/Parker/Joseph for Conley and Gaysoft

[Lakers999]

he might go to the lakers like his older brother

[Uriel]

1. Did Marc Gasol just play his final game in his adopted American home of Memphis?

That would be a rather dramatic conclusion to draw, based on the available evidence, but here's the thing:
Nobody knows.

Maybe not even Gasol himself.

And in the event Big Spain does have his looming foray into free agency all secretly mapped out, chances are he hasn't shared it with anyone yet apart from his representatives and brother Pau.

Marc Gasol's fondness for the Bluff City has been well-chronicled. He went to high school there when Pau was playing for the Grizzlies, wound up in the Grizzlies' organization via the same unforgettably controversial 2007 trade that sent Pau to the Lakers and, through an increasingly maniacal devotion to getting fitter and fitter, has seemingly shed half a person since his teen years to evolve into maybe the league's best two-way center.

The Grizzlies are thus understandably jittery about Gasol's looming turn on the open market and will remain so until they have him re-signed to a new max deal. San Antonio, specifically, is the team they fear most.

Yet it's premature to try to establish the Spurs as some sort of favorite to steal him away, since they're also widely expected to focus first on the guy perceived as this summer's more gettable superstar: Portland's LaMarcus Aldridge.

What is obvious to everyone some six weeks out, especially the Grizzlies, is that Gasol is irreplaceable. The mere threat of losing him is chilling, because there's no telling how long it would take Memphis to recover.

Most rival teams favor Memphis to ultimately win the Gasol sweepstakes because A) Gasol's ties to the city are legitimately deep and B) he's the unquestioned starting center on the NBA's "I Just Want To Win" team. Which is another way of saying that few league observers can picture him leaving when there isn't an obvious landing spot that immediately positions Gasol to do more winning than he's currently doing with the Grizz -- unless Tim Duncan retires to create a gaping hole in the San Antonio frontcourt.

Let's face it: If the Grizzlies could just find the means to acquire a quality shooter or two to add to their "Core Four" of Gasol, Mike Conley, Zach Randolph and Tony Allen, based on all the problems they managed to give Golden State without a long-ball threat, they'd presumably be closer to real contention than any of the teams expected to pursue Gasol hardest in free agency.

Knicks? Lakers? Who else besides San Antonio can mount a legit threat?

These Grizzlies just won 55 games and dragged the mighty Warriors to six games in the second round despite their obvious shortcomings on the perimeter, as well as the fact they had a team on fumes by the time Steph Curry and Co. were done with them thanks to the injuries carried by Conley (face, foot, etc.) and Allen (hamstring).

Yet we repeat: Gasol has given his own coaches and bosses no hints. Unlike Aldridge, who, according to league sources, hasn't been afraid to share the occasional whisper with a few well-placed folks about the prospect of leaving Portland, Gasol is saying pretty much nothing.

So it's going to be a long 43 days until July 1 for the Tennessee in bents.

http://espn.go.com/blog/marc-stein/p...rizzlies-gasol