We spend a lot of time raving about the biggest trade of Masai Ujiri’s career, the one in which he traded DeMar DeRozan and Jakob Poeltl to the Spurs for Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green. We should spend a lot of time talking about that trade, because it was bold, it was brilliant. It worked.
But there was a trade after that one that still doesn’t get nearly as much attention as it deserves: the trade for Marc Gasol.
The Raptors picked up Gasol at the 2019 trade deadline for Jonas Valanciunas, C.J. Miles, Delon Wright, and a future second round pick. Toronto didn’t give up a lot in terms of a single critical piece, but it wasn’t exactly a trash bag package either. Valanciunas had been a starter for years, is seven years younger than Gasol, and had a strong on-court rapport with Kyle Lowry. Miles and Wright were having down seasons, but represented part of the Raptors’ strong depth. Ujiri gave up youth at the center position and depth to make a play for a 34-year-old big man with a $26 million player option for next season.
In the 56 games before the Gasol trade, the Raptors had the No. 5 net rating in the NBA with the No. 7 offense and No. 8 defense, per NBA.com’s stats page. Toronto was No. 23 in the league in three-point shooting (34.5 percent) and No. 22 in assist percentage (57.8 percent). In the 26 games after acquiring Gasol, the Raptors had the No. 4 net rating in the league with the No. 9 offense and No. 3 defense.
But the offense didn’t actually become less efficient: other offenses just scored that much more efficiently. And Toronto’s offense got better in two key ways. With Gasol in town, the Raptors were the No. 1 ranked three-point shooting team (41 percent) and jumped to No. 4 in assist percentage (65.5 percent).
In their Game 1 win over the Warriors to open the NBA Finals, the Raptors shot 13-33 (39 percent) from three and assisted on 64 percent of their makes. Pretty good. And while Golden State ended up scoring at a rather efficient rate, Toronto’s defense caused problems for the Warriors throughout.
Any worries about whether Gasol would be able to provide a superior level of defense to Valanciunas against high-level foes were answered in the previous two series against the Bucksand 76ers. But Gasol is still showing why Ujiri pulled the trigger on the trade here in the NBA Finals. Look at this large 34-year-old move!
Gasol helps double-team Klay Thompson in the post, forcing Thompson to pass out to Andre Iguodala, who swings to Draymond Green, who looks like he has a wide open Jordan Bell under the rim ... until Gasol rotates back into position to nab a steal. Marc doesn’t look like an immobile lumbering center here, does he?
The Gasol-Lowry pick-and-roll has also become a divine entry point into Toronto’s offense when Kawhi isn’t just destroying opponents in isolation. In fact, much of Pascal Siakam’s glorious Game 1 can be traced back to action off of the Gasol-Lowry pick-and-roll, with the Warriors shading help as Gasol receives the ball off a mismatch. This is attention that Valanciunas, lord love him, would not be getting.
Also, of course, Gasol scored 20 points on open threes and pick-and-pop buckets, which is almost gravy on a night when Siakam, Fred VanVleet, and Kawhi also scored a bunch of points as well.
The other beautiful piece of the Gasol trade beyond the positive on-court impact — this trade could end up as a critical ingredient of a freaking NBA championship — is that it simplified the offseason for Ujiri.
Valanciunas has $17.6 million player option for next season. At 27 years old, as a starting NBA center who is probably somewhere between the top 10 at his position and just above average, there is a real chance the Lithuanian opts out to become an unrestricted free agent. Toronto stood to either have to pay him big money like they did for Lowry and DeRozan, or watch him walk for nothing. (And if not this summer, next summer when the contract ends completely.)
Gasol also has that large player option, but he’s much older and quite possibly looking for a career denouement in lieu of another giant payday. Odds are Gasol will opt in to run it back with the Raptors no matter if Leonard sticks around, and then will sign a 2- or 3-year smaller contract to finish out his NBA career in Toronto or elsewhere. Who knows what the Raptors will look like then, anyway?
Gasol didn’t exactly save the Raptors money, but the trade did protect Ujiri from having to pay Valanciunas this summer or next, and that fits with the high-risk, high-reward orientation toward trying to win it all this season with Kawhi in tow. It’s probably time to break up the Raptors as we know them if Leonard leaves in the summer, title or not. That would have meant trading or letting Valanciunas walk anyway. With the Gasol trade, Ujiri fast-forwarded to that scene, putting the incumbent center’s timeline with the Raptors on the same timeline as Kawhi’s.
So really, there wasn’t a huge risk here. If Gasol didn’t materially improve the team (he did), he was a big salary hit for one additional season, but prevented a multi-year financial hit or a free agent walkway from Valanciunas. If Gasol did make the team noticeably better, all that still applies and the team gets a shot at a title. It’s more like a low-risk, high-reward trade ... much like the Kawhi blockbuster.
This is part of Ujiri’s genius: he somehow makes obvious, high-upside trades look like risky maneuvers by doing the unexpected and always building upon what he has instead of tearing down. In retrospect, the Gasol trade was an obvious win; the question was to what degree it would be a net positive for Toronto. Based on the results so far, with the Raptors up 1-0 in the NBA Finals, it’s looking very, very good.