Lakers all-time starting five – Power forward: Pau Gasol (2009-10)
Stat line: 18.3 PPG / 11.3 RPG / 3.4 APG
The second potentially controversial choice I’ve made, Pau Gasol is still somehow criminally underrated by Laker fans despite winning two titles as our second-best player. However, using the logic I outlined above, unless I pushed George Mikan to power forward, the only realistic choice was a power forward that played for the Lakers between 2004-2018.
Gasol fits with my ethos of a ball-movement heavy team, with career averages of more than 3 assists per game. Although he was never asked to shoot threes as an NBA player, his career percentage of 36.8% (admittedly on only 0.4 attempts per game) indicates that he could’ve expanded his range out to the three-point line in the modern era.
As it stands, Gasol was a prolific mid-range shooter throughout his career, giving my all-time team strong scoring options at all three levels. However, in this team, Gasol would be the fifth-option on offense. I envision him acting as a playmaking option through the high-post, hitting would be cutters in stride, or as a pick-and-pop option with Magic, West and LeBron.
The big-to-big passing of Gasol to Andrew Bynum was a stand-out feature of the Lakers offense, so it’s not a stretch to imagine how much more effective that particular action would be with Shaq in Bynum’s place.
Why I chose this version of him?
There are two key reasons why I chose this version of Pau Gasol, when he had two other Laker seasons with more Win Shares / 48, one of which, like 2009-10, was also a title season.
The primary reason is that it was his best defensive season as a Laker. Pau was never known for his defensive acumen, but in a team with a plethora of scoring options, I want a version of Pau that provides the best balance of offense and defense.
The 11.7 rebounds per game and 1.7 blocks per game that Pau averaged in 2009-10 were both his highest numbers as a Laker. In terms of his advanced defensive metrics, his defensive box-score plus-minus was also the highest it ever was as a Laker (1.3), and if you normalize them to a per-game basis, his Defensive Win Shares were higher than they were the following season (0.065 per game vs. 0.057 per game).
On my all-time Laker team, I want there to be as few weak links as humanly possible, so while I don’t necessarily need Pau for his scoring, picking the best defensive version of him goes a long way towards mitigating that.
The other reason why I’m rolling with 2009-10 Pau is his playoff performance that year. Simply put, Gasol was even better in the postseason than he was in the regular season.
En route to winning a title over the Boston Celtics, Gasol went for 18.6 PPG / 11.6 RPG / 3.7 APG on .478/.721 splits over the seven-game series, impressive numbers against arguably the best defense in the NBA. For the duration of the playoffs, Gasol was even better, with a slash line of 19.6 PPG / 11.1 RPG / 3.5 APG on .539/.759 splits across 23 total games.
For an all-time roster, I want a player who is at his best when the pressure of games is heightened, and Pau Gasol definitely fits the bill.
How’d I do? Do you agree with my choices for the “All-Time Los Angeles Lakers Starting 5: No Teammates Edition”, or would you have done things differently? My methodology is by no means infallible, so I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.