5 replies to this topic

[The Future]

http://hangtime.blog...ade-be-patient/

HANG TIME NEW JERSEY – If you’re waiting on Pau Gasol in Minnesota or Toronto (or anywhere else, really), you’ll need to be patient.
While the All-Star big man continues to look like a bad fit with Mike D’Antoni‘s Lakers, L.A. brass is willing to wait to see how things work out after Steve Nash returns from his leg injury, as our David Aldridge reports in the video above.
“Right now,” DA says, “nothing’s happening with regard to Pau Gasol.”
That doesn’t mean that folks around the league can’t talk about the possibilities, of course. And it’s not like the NBA’s other general managers can’t gauge Mitch Kupchak‘s interest in their players until Nash is cleared to play.
Toronto fans are probably the most desperate for a shake-up. Their team is 4-15 and Andrea Bargnani is shooting 40 percent. Using an adjusted strength-of-schedule formula that takes home-away and back-to-backs into account, the Raps have played the league’s toughest schedule thus far. But they still have three more games on their current five-game trip and 4-15 is never an easy hole to climb out of, no matter what the circumstances are.
Doug Smith of the Toronto Star writes that rumors are just that, and Bryan Colangelo is always going to see what’s available:

The merits of a Gasol-Bargnani swap can be debated until the cows come home — and it would have to be a significantly bigger trade anyway to make the salaries match — but it speaks to general managers doing what they should: Try to make their teams better, in their opinion.
But it’s often the chatter that goes on behind the scenes that yields action; if things get to the public stage it often means one side is trying to change the opinion of the other by applying some public pressure.
There is no doubt that Colangelo, and his Los Angeles counterpart Mitch Kupchak, are tying their level best to improve their teams. If they chatted about Bargnani and Gasol, you can be sure they talked to several other teams as well.
And when those talks get to the public stage, another flurry of interest will follow. And when either makes a trade no one saw coming, it will be reality.

Meanwhile, Jerry Zgoda of the Minneapolis Star Tribune writes that there’s certainly some validity to the Wolves’ interest in Gasol:

Make no mistake: Adelman has been driving the bus on personnel moves since last summer and the Wolves’ continued interest in a 32-year-old with knee tendinitis and an $18 million salary means Adelman approves of the idea, if he’s not outright pushing for it.
Any such deal would have to include Derrick Williams, Nikola Pekovic as well as J.J. Bareaand/or Luke Ridnour just so the Wolves could give back enough salary to absorb Gasol’s big contract.
And it might very well have to involve a third or fourth team to make the deal work because the Lakers, if they do indeed trade Gasol, want a power forward who can shoot — a “stretch 4″ — to put next to Dwight Howard and have other preferred targets in sight such as Toronto’s Andrea Bargnani or New Orleans’ Ryan Anderson rather than Williams, who indeed is a stretch 4, just not a very consistent one so far.

Gasol’s contract (he’s owed $19 million this season and $19.3 million next season) would make any trade difficult to pull off, but bigger contracts have been moved and there seems to be interest around the NBA in one of the league’s most talented big men.
Still, the Lakers want first to see what they’ve got when D’Antoni is able to coach all four of his star players together. Furthermore, we’ll have to wait until Jan. 15 before some players who signed new contracts this summer are trade eligible.
So hold off on the trade talk for now.

[Carolina Panthers]

I'm really not. Trading Pau Gasol wouldn't be a good move, but neither was firing Mike Brown for D Antoni.

[Saint Nick C]

I'm not in a rush.

I'm just gonna' take the season as it unfolds.

I really want to see if Nash can, in fact, be the difference maker.

[Dedo™]

Thank god! The Lakers don't need another trade. They are fine and just wait until Nash comes back. He will make big difference in this team.

[DTIII™]

We'll see how he does after Nash comes back.

[Jay*]

Even though after tough losses, I tend to direct most anger towards Gasol,so I will probably sound like an hypocrite, but I don't want him to be traded. I mean, just by the 2 games without him, I can see how much a 7 foot presence means. So many rebounds that he alters, and in the post, he isn't the "Rim Protector" but him just being there helps a lot. He is very valuable.

He's resting his knees and will get back strong. If I had to predict,I would say Gasol is going to stay.