Los Angeles Lakers: 4 drafted players that had great careers elsewhere
By Jason Reed
Marc Gasol
In an article we recently published, we discovered that Marc Gasol has the 10th-highest win shares among any player that has been drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers in franchise history. That is remarkable.
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For those that are unfamiliar with Gasol’s situation with the Lakers, he was selected in the second round of the 2007 NBA Draft but spent the 2007 season playing in Europe. Then, with the team needing a second star to contend with Kobe Bryant, the Lakers included Gasol in a trade package for his brother, Pau.
The rest was history. Pau Gasol would go onto being the perfect number two for Kobe Bryant’s Lakers and the 2009-2010 Lakers went on to win back-to-back championships with a rather thin roster for a title-winning team, showcasing truly how great Kobe Bryant was.
Marc, on the other hand, signed with the Memphis Grizzlies and carved out a great career there. He was an NBA all-star three times with the Grizzlies, averaging 15.2 points, 7.6 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game.
He now plays a much lesser role with the Toronto Raptors but he got the one thing that every NBA player strives for: a championship ring. He started all 24 games for the Raptors during the playoffs, averaging 9.4 points and 6.4 rebounds per game.
Is Gasol a Hall of Famer? It is up in the air. If Divac can make the Hall for his contributions as a foreign-born player than Gasol probably should as well, especially now that he has the championship ring under his belt.
Even if he doesn’t, he is yet another example of a great player that the Los Angeles Lakers drafted that carved out a career elsewhere. Even with that being said, the Lakers definitely do not regret trading Marc Gasol.