Post by jhb on Feb 24, 2021 14:37:28 GMT -5
Marc Gasol
C
7'0"
255
22
Spain
Gasol comes from a great basketball pedigree but scouts have a lot of questions if he'll live up to that family legacy. As you can see, Marc perhaps hasn't taken conditioning and preparing his body for the rigors of TMBSL perhaps as seriously as he should have. While he is naturally very strong, he's very slow and a bit vertically challenged. He's a bit mechanical and will need to work on his movement skills to hang defensively at the next level. However, he does have a soft shooting touch from all levels and like many Europeans, he's ahead of his American counterparts in terms of fundamentals and skills. He's got a sublime handle for a man his size and he moves the ball extremely well out of the high post. Gasol's shot is fluid and scouts expect he'll be among the best of his big man counterparts from the free throw line and may even have range out to the three point line.
Obviously, his lack of athleticism is hurting him on defense but he does show some natural instincts on this end. While someone plodding, he has a knack for positioning himself and his strength allows him to hold up against very physical opponents. Where he's getting hurt now is against quickness, and he definitely is not prepared to step out and potentially have to worry about switching a pick and roll. He has shown some adept timing to reach up and block some shots but he's never going to be much of a help-side rim protector. One element of his game that is a bit disappointing is that he's a bit disengaged as a rebounder and could really do well to show some more effort there.
We expect that Gasol will contribute as a scorer and facilitator at worst, but the best case scenario includes him taking his conditioning and athleticism seriously and seeing some reverse projection there that allows him to do more as a defender and rebounder and become more of an all-around contributor. He has the potential for that, it's just going to take some work off the court.
