Memphis Grizzlies: How Marc Gasol’s Return Improves Title Chances

Marc Gasol made a quick return from an abdominal tear, missing just two games for the Memphis Grizzlies. Photo Credit: Mark Runyon, Basketball Schedule

Marc Gasol of the Memphis Grizzlies stunned his team and its fans on Wednesday, March 27, when he returned to the lineup in a 108-101 loss to the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.

For a guy who had been diagnosed with an abdominal tear that he first hurt in a March 6 game against the Portland Trail Blazers, Gasol made an awfully quick return.

The Grizzlies sat down Gasol after he scored 16 points and got six rebounds in a 90-83 loss to the New Orleans Hornets on March 22. According to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Gasol was to be out indefinitely with the injury, something that threw the Grizzlies’ late push for a top-four seed in the Western Conference playoffs into question.

Apparently, however, “indefinitely” translates to “two games” in Gasol’s native tongue, or at least his basketball one.

Memphis lost in Gasol’s return, but the Grizzlies are 4-0 since then, with home-court wins over the Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs to go with victories at Minnesota and Portland.

In the five games since he came back, Gasol is averaging 15.4 points, six rebounds, 4.4 assists and 1.4 blocks per game on 58 percent shooting, while playing 34.6 minutes a game.

That compares to his seasonal numbers over 73 games of 14.4 points, 7.6 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.7 blocks on 49.8 percent shooting in 35.2 minutes per game.

So Gasol has been good since he returned and so have the Grizzlies. That’s not a surprise—according to 82games.com, Gasol has meant a net 10.6 points per game for Memphis this season. The Grizzlies outscore their opponents by seven points when Gasol is on the floor as opposed to the 3.5-point deficit they play to when Gasol is not in the game.

That’s hardly a surprise, considering Gasol leads the Grizzlies with 10.3 win shares this season (the sixth-best mark in the NBA) and his 19.5 player efficiency rating (PER) is also the highest on the ballclub.

Those gaudy numbers come despite having only the fourth-highest usage rate of players currently on the Memphis roster. Gasol’s usage rate is 19.4 percent, compared to 20.6 percent for Jerryd Bayless, 20.8 percent for Mike Conley and the 22.7 percent usage rate for Zach Randolph.

And he’s pretty handy on defense when equipped with a shoe, as the Utah Jazz recently learned:

That’s all pretty heady stuff for a player who was considered nothing more than a throw-in in February 2008, when former Memphis general manager gift-wrapped Marc’s older brother, Pau Gasol, along with a second-round draft pick in 2010 and shipped him off to the Los Angeles Lakers for Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, a 2008 first-round draft pick that turned into Donte Greene, a 2010 first-rounder who was eventually Greivis Vasquez and the draft rights to the younger Gasol, who had been taken by the Lakers in the second round of the 2007 NBA Draft.

But since coming to the NBA, Marc Gasol has been a standout contributor for a team on the rise in Memphis. He made his debut in 2008-09 and has been as consistent as a metronome since, averaging 13.4 points and eight rebounds per game in his career. His scoring average has fluctuated between 11.7 and 14.6, so he’s been western Tennessee’s very own version of Old Faithful.

And Gasol has consistently stepped up his game in the playoffs. In 20 postseason games, Gasol has averaged 15.1 points and 9.7 rebounds on 51.4 percent shooting—all better than his regular-season numbers.

That’s part of the reason why any hopes the Grizzlies have of getting out of the brutal Western Conference and into the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history revolve around Gasol and his balky abdomen.

With an effective Gasol in the middle, Randolph has the room in the low post to do what he does—score in bunches. But without Gasol, teams can collapse on Randolph, which ramps up the pressure on Conley and the perimeter players to produce.

Getting Gasol back early was a bonus for Memphis, which is currently in the fifth position in the West at 51-24. Their record matches that of the No. 3 Denver Nuggets, but the Nuggets swept the season series between the teams and hold the tiebreaker.

That 51st win on Wednesday, April 3, against the Trail Blazers had special significance–it established a new franchise record for most victories in a season.

Keeping Gasol in the lineup is the only chance the Grizzlies have for a title.