Marc Gasol had a choice.
He was hurt and probably more than a little angry. When the Lakers signed Andre Drummond, effectively demoting Gasol to the deep bench, the former All-Star did not try to mask his disappointment, calling it a “hard pill” to swallow.
It left him at a crossroads.
“Either you take it as a challenge,” Gasol said last week, “or you move on.”
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After an untimely toenail injury left Drummond unable to put on a sneaker after he’d played less than one half of basketball, it became increasingly clear which path Gasol decided to take.
It might just be a case of too little, too late.
After Gasol turned in what might have been his best performance of the season in Tuesday’s 110-101 win over the Toronto Raptors — scoring a season-high 13 points and adding five assists while tying season highs with nine rebounds and four blocks — Frank Vogel reiterated the Lakers’ commitment to Drummond, saying he will start when he returns to the lineup, which could be as early as Thursday in Miami.
“That’s what we signed him here for,” Vogel said, taking the air out of any potential controversy at center. “We need to get him a ton of minutes to get him acclimated to our system with only X-amount of games before the playoffs, and he’ll be our starter.”
It’s the harsh reality of Gasol’s situation that there isn’t much he can do to regain the role he signed on for when he left Toronto as a free agent in November. And it’s one he seems to be more at peace with than when he first addressed Drummond’s arrival following the Lakers win over Sacramento on Friday.
“It’s been a process for me to reassess this situation a little bit,” Gasol said, “but like I said, I’m fully committed to this team.”
If Drummond stays healthy, it’s fair to wonder just how much more we’ll see of Gasol this season. If he has finally risen to meet the enormous expectations of his offseason arrival just in time to start racking up a series of DNPs as the Lakers scrambled to slow their slide in the Western Conference standings.
Tuesday night provided a compelling canvas for Gasol to paint his masterpiece, such as it were, with the Lakers: Playing against the team with which he won one championship while trying to fight off an uncertain role on the team with which he is trying to win another.
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“It means a lot to him, his basketball,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. “I think he’s proud of what he’s accomplished. And I think he always sees himself as a big contributor on a team. Whether he’s scoring or not, he plays to win.”
Barely two years ago, Gasol was still averaging north of 15 points a game for Memphis. Then he was traded to Toronto for their title run and his individual numbers plummeted, even though he remained a vital piece of the Raptors core.
Last season, his scoring dropped to 7.5 points per game. With the Lakers, he’s averaging 4.7 points. And Gasol was fine with that.
“I never look at my game as, ‘What can I do for me?’ ” he said. “And sometimes you have to be a little more assertive and look for your game because that also helps the team. You can be selfish by being too unselfish. And I’ve had that problem before. It’s not a bad problem to have, but it can be an issue.”
On Tuesday, his nine shot attempts were yet another season high. And while it is easy to dismiss stats accumulated against a Raptors team playing without Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet, they nonetheless seem to represent a shift for Gasol.
“When I have the ball now, it’s like, ‘OK, look for your shot, create something and if you don’t have it, move it on,’ ” he said.
On Tuesday night against the Raptors, Gasol looked the best he has all season, ripping a rebound away from Chris Boucher and finding Kyle Kuzma for an open 3 on the opening possession.
“His job is to facilitate offensively, give us perimeter shooting and be a great screener, and he was all three of those tonight,” Vogel gushed.
Two nights earlier, Gasol shot 3 of 3 on 3-pointers against the Clippers. Before that, he posted nine rebounds and six assists against Sacramento and Vogel said he “dominated the game.”
It has been a poorly-timed revival for Gasol, who appeared in just two games after missing nine with a bout of COVID-19 before the Lakers signed Drummond. It was a course correction from the Lakers offseason strategy, one that essentially signaled that the front office believed it had erred in prioritizing Gasol’s spacing and savvy over the pure athleticism and rim protection that Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee provided for last season’s champions.
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Even still, the Lakers had built the league’s best defense with Gasol anchoring the middle in lineups with Anthony Davis and LeBron James.
Panic only set in once those two went down with their respective leg injuries.
The old maxim is that a player can’t lose his job due to an injury; how about when the injuries aren’t even to the player in question?
In a disjointed Lakers season full of setbacks, Gasol is only the latest veteran to have to face uncomfortable truths. Wesley Matthews and Markieff Morris were both benched early in the season, and Matthews is still a far more minor figure than he expected when he arrived in free agency. And at the trade deadline, Dennis Schröder responded to the news that the Lakers were discussing him in trades by averaging 19 points over his next five games.
Vogel has remained adamant that the Lakers will need Gasol throughout their playoff run, and it’s encouraging that he has found a way to make a greater impact, even if it’s in lineups without James and Davis.
“I’ll stay ready when my number is called,” Gasol said. “I understand we have to get Andre acclimated to what we’re trying to do. We have to get back our two main guys, Bron and AD, whenever they come back, and they have to get that group going and get some chemistry going with the first unit for them.
“I’ll be ready no matter what happens. No matter if it’s 5 minutes, 10 minutes, if it’s whatever position. If it’s some nights, I might not play. But I’ll stay ready, no matter what.”
(Photo of Gasol: Scott Audette / NBAE via Getty Images)