Marc Gasol may be better than his older brother in a year or so. He's bigger, stronger, not as fluid, but just as good a shooter. And he's not soft.
Exactly. People forget that the Lakers had to give up Marc Gasol to get Pau. Not exactly as hugely lopsided as people think. I would love to have Gasol on this team.
But not superior to the combination of both. Blake is a top flight point guard and Travis Outlaw is a young and talented wing. The Clips got two great players. Look at how great they played tonight.
This. If anybody seriously believes we gave up 'more' with Steve Blake and Catfish to get Camby they need to check themselves.
Yes! Another good MC comparison. Pau really put the Laker's over the top, hopefully with a fully healthy roster Camby will do the same for us. Imagine if we had the same home record as last year, we'd be the second seed right now!
It should be added though that Marc Gasol at the time of the trade was not as great a prospect as he turned out to be. (Even though he was having a good season in Europe.)
He was arguably the Euroleague's best young player, from what I read. Rudy Fernandez was also in that discussion. I would say that so far Gasol has exceeded expectations and Rudy has not yet lived up to them. But both started as pretty intriguing prospects.
That's what I remembered, too, but I wasn't sure when. Wikipedia says he was the 2008 MVP of the ACB. He was traded earlier that season, February 1st. I didn't think much of him at the time of the trade... (though I'd only seen him in the 2006 Worlds and EuroBasket 2007, in the latter he looked solid but nothing to get excited about). He was already making huge strides in the 2008 ACB season, but I guess most people (myself included) only looked at his draft position and his previous body of work. Edit: Rudy did win the FIBA young european player of the year award and he was in the discussion for ACB MVP when Gasol won.
All in all, even if you consider how Marc Gasol turned out, I still think the Lakers got a much bigger steal, because they're getting a prime Pau Gasol under contract for a couple of more years, while we got a 37-year-old (?), free-agent-to-be Camby.
