Should The Hawks Go After Marc Gasol In Free Agency?
By John Buhler
The Atlanta Hawks are close to winning an NBA Championship. Had the 2014-15 Hawks been healthy especially on the wing, maybe our team would be playing against Golden State in the NBA Finals on Thursday.
As fun as that team was to watch, there’s a good chance that key pieces on the Atlanta roster might not return. DeMarre Carroll and Paul Millsap will earn big pay increases in free agency. Carroll could earn $10-12 Million annually and I’ve heard Millsap earning upwards of $19 Million. There is a way that the Hawks can keep both of their revered forwards but that’s way too much math for me at the moment.
Should Carroll and/or Millsap leave via free agency which top-flight free agent should the Hawks try to persuade to suit up in the ATL. Two of my favorite players not on the Hawks will enter free agency this summer, LaMarcus Aldridge and Marc Gasol. While both are big time big men, can either All-Star play well alongside Al Horford? I believe Marc Gasol would thrive in the Atlanta frontcourt with Horford.
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Gasol is a multiple time NBA All-Star and a former Defensive Player of the Year for the Memphis Grizzlies. He has excellent foot work and a fantastic mid-range game to complement his defensive prowess. Al Horford could easily slide down to power forward with Gasol on the court and Atlanta could better protect the rim while still spreading the floor offensively.
It’s not do we want Marc Gasol but will he leave Memphis? When his older brother Pau got traded to the Grizzlies by the Hawks for Shareef Abdur-Rahim in 2001 (way to go, team!), Marc was still in high school and grew up in nearby Germantown, Tennessee. To Marc, Memphis is home since his family relocated from Spain to watch Pau play in the NBA. Though Marc went to Los Angeles Lakers in the second round of the 2008 NBA Draft, he ended up getting shipped to Memphis for his older brother. And for the last several seasons, Marc Gasol has been the face of the Grit N’ Grind Grizzlies.
The Atlanta Hawks getting Marc Gasol in free agency would be the City of Atlanta’s best free agent acquisition since John Schuerholz acquired Greg Maddux before the 1993 Atlanta Braves season. Realistically, I know that Atlanta’s chances of landing Gasol are microscopic but it’s not that he won’t play in Atlanta, it’s that he won’t leave Memphis. If the Hawks get Marc Gasol to theoretically replace Paul Millsap, Atlanta might be a sexy pick to win it all entering 2016.