Marc Gasol: The “Slow-Fast” Wonder

By jasaad | Mar 5, 2015

Marc Gasol has made massive strides since being an obscure, chubby teenager. His brilliance is now on full display in the world’s most elite basketball association.

Despite playing in Memphis, a bottom-five NBA market, and lacking the vigor of today’s ultra-athletic players, Gasol is forcing people to take note of his top-tier level of play. He’s helped lead the Grizzlies to the playoffs in four consecutive years and counting, and they’re primed for a Finals appearance this season.

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Gasol registers 18 points and 8 rebounds per game for the second best team in the Western Conference, while making about half of his shot attempts. It’s easy for a casual fan to slight Gasol for not putting up gaudy double-double numbers, but that’s not what the Grizzlies require of him.

Gasol, who willingly gets out of rebounding position to help on defense and makes the extra, incisive pass on offense, isn’t concerned about padding his stats — a rare trait among today’s superstars.

Thanks to the modern era of Twitter, NBA League Pass, and copious advanced metrics, Gasol’s incredible impact on the Grizzlies has become illuminated. Otherwise, Gasol’s ground-bound, nonexplosive game would go unnoticed by a plethora of fans; however, Gasol’s meager athletic ability shouldn’t be perceived as a disadvantage.

Just as casual observers are susceptible to undermining the Spaniard’s keenly perceptive game, numerous uber athletic specimens of the present-day NBA tend to overlook the subtle nuances of the game.

Take, for example, Russell Westbrook. Rather than harnessing his otherworldly athleticism, the point guard out of UCLA heedlessly shoots into supersonic speed to barrel toward the hoop (often out of control); he finishes a mediocre percentage of his drives, per SportVU.

Defensively, Westbrook relies on his foot-speed to gamble aimlessly for steals, and he occasionally loses track of his man while playing off-ball defense.

Gasol’s big man counterpart of the Houston Rockets, Dwight Howard, is another player who confides in his supreme physical ability; he struggles in every facet of the game that requires skill and basketball intelligence — while excelling in the areas that call for power, agility, and leaping ability.

Instead, Marc isn’t considered a star for serving as a heedless behemoth on the court. His intuition allows him to display excellent aid in regard to the needs of his teammates as he applies his brute force thoughtfully. Scarce are the big men who come into the league with Gasol’s acumen and passing dexterity.

Doc Rivers provided his insight into Gasol’s game before the Clippers took on the Grizzlies last week.

“He’s slow-fast. He looks like molasses when he moves, but he’s always smarter than the guy guarding him. … He has all the old-man moves.”

Much akin to Tim Duncan, Gasol possesses the rare ability to toggle between grace and physical tenacity. Last Saturday night versus the Minnesota Timberwolves was a prime example of Gasol’s unique versatility.

Minnesota features two paradoxical big men who enable them to play matchups. There’s Gorgui Dieng, who’s undersized at the center position but is unfairly quick for most opposing bigs. Then there’s the slow but massive Nikola Pekovic. Theoretically, one of these two bigs should be able to pose problems for Gasol, yet the Spaniard was able to counter both Dieng and Pekovic.

Pekovic is normally strong enough to back down his defenders to generate any type of shot he wants in the post — but not against Gasol. At 7-foot-1 and 265 lbs, Gasol uses his colossal frame to force his opponents to take errant shots by either altering or blocking them. Gasol domineers over his opponent by entrenching himself where he wants his opponents to take the shot.

It isn’t too difficult to decipher why Gasol is the former Defensive Player of the Year when considering his size, strength, instinct, and skill.

“Watch the Grizzlies on defense, and you’ll see Gasol barking out instructions, pointing, pushing teammates into their proper spaces,” said Bleacher Reports’s Howard Beck.

Offensively, Gasol is a game changer due to his strength and quickness. As he posted up against Pekovic on the block, Gasol decided it would be more efficient to force Pekovic into the paint, and spun around him for an easy bucket under the rim. Gasol also exploited Pekovic’s lack of verticality with flat-footed set shots.

Although he has the quickness to keep up with Gasol, Dieng is too wiry to contain the Spaniard entirely. Dieng aimed to avoid getting worn down by Gasol’s brutish style of play by creating distance between him and his defender, but this provided enough space for Gasol to hit the open jumper.

Nonetheless, Gasol’s brute force and shooting touch are just two impressive aspects of his game. He’s also an intelligent passer out of the post — which helped the Grizzlies escape with a victory on Saturday night.

With the game tied at 95 with 35 seconds to play, the Timberwolves came out of the timeout with a zone defense in an attempt to force the Grizzlies — a team without a lot of shooting — to beat them with a shot.

Gasol received the entry pass at the elbow, and saw Ricky Rubio coming up behind Zach Randolph in the post. In an instant, Gasol heaved a pass over his head to Conley who put up what would be the go-ahead three with just over 30 seconds to play.

“They tried to play zone, I saw Ricky [Rubio] roaming and gambling a little bit and Gorgui [Dieng] sat on Mike [Conley] and Mike was wide open on the wing,” said Gasol about the play.

The game has evolved over the years. Rule changes and smart coaching have made speed, passing, and shooting more important than they’ve ever been. Grantland’s Zach Lowe recently delved into this matter.

“The NBA was becoming more skilled, not smaller. More teams that lacked good big men decided not to play the 7-foot plodders they did have. So-called “stretch” power forwards became in vogue, but they weren’t smaller humans — they were mostly humans of power forward size who happened to be good shooters.

“The best teams need everything — the ability to go super-big against Memphis, and to inject more shooting and playmaking into one big-man slot when the opponent requires it. The Spurs are a model of that kind of flexibility; capturing it requires spending every dollar wisely. Size will matter as long as basketball involves people trying to throw a ball up and into a basket propped 10 feet above the ground.”

Though he lacks the physical ability of Dwight Howard and Russell Westbrook, Gasol uses his high basketball IQ and skill set to provide the perfect combination of brute force and ingenuity to his team. The ground-bound big man is primed to propel the Grizzlies to lofty heights.

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