Charlotte Hornets: A Marc Gasol trade would’ve saved the season
The Charlotte Hornets could’ve dramatically improved their roster before the trade deadline, but instead, they could not pull off a trade to bring in Marc Gasol.
On the day of the NBA’s trade deadline, the Charlotte Hornets were close to coming up with a deal to bring in the Memphis Grizzlies’ star center, Marc Gasol. Unfortunately, the Hornets couldn’t come up with a deal to bring Gasol to Charlotte.
Prior to the deadline, the Hornets would lose out on the deal, and Gasol would be traded to the Toronto Raptors. This dealt a devastating blow to the Hornets playoff chances, and hurt their campaign to re-sign Kemba Walker.
The Hornets needed a second dominant scorer who could take the pressure off of Walker. Gasol would’ve not only helped the Hornets in the scoring department, but he would’ve also drastically improved the center position for Charlotte.
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This season, the Hornets didn’t get a lot of production from their center position. The leading scorers at this spot were Cody Zeller and Frank Kaminsky. During this season, Zeller missed almost half of the season due to a nagging injuries
While Zeller missed a lot of playing time this season, Gasol was able to play in a total of seventy-nine games. Unlike Zeller, Gasol has been a player who has been able to maintain his body and has played in over seventy games over the past three seasons.
During this season, Gasol averaged 13.6 points and 7.9 rebounds per game. When he transitioned to the Raptors, he only finished the season averaging 9.1 points and 6.6 rebounds per game.
On the Raptors, Gasol was not one of their main players. He finished the season only averaging 24.9 minutes per game for the Raptors; this is nine fewer minutes per game than what he received with the Grizzlies.
These numbers would’ve been entirely different if was traded to the Hornets though. Gasol is a great player at the center position, and he fits a majority of the needs that Coach Borrego was looking for.
Gasol has everything that the Hornets have been looking for at the center position. He is good at spacing the floor, rebounding the basketball, and also has a good reputation for assisting the basketball.
The Hornets really made a mistake when they allowed the Raptors to steal Gasol away from coming to Charlotte. I know that this was only Mitch Kupchak’s first season with the Hornets, but he is going to have to step it up in the offseason.
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The NBA Draft and free agency are set to occur within the next three months, so the Hornets must be ready to make some franchise saving moves. All we can do now is trust that Kupchak can bring in some talent.