Pau Gasol, The Black Swan Returns?

it appears as if the boo birds have gotten to gasol. he DOES have a pulse after all. A Prince Among Men, Pau Gasol Must Join in Commoner Spirit of These L.A. Lakers BY KEVIN DING (NBA NATIONAL COLUMNIST) ON DECEMBER 10, 2013 Now that the sunny post-Dwight Howard team harmony has been established, and now that Kobe Bryant has made his much-anticipated return landing, what would be the next step in a Cinderella season for these L.A. Lakers? Pau Gasol shining again like a Spanish prince before the clock strikes midnight on his Lakers career? Bryant staggered to the finish of the loss....

Everybody takes it too the Lakers interior defenders...Why shouldn't Gasol be able to score on them in practice too? What I am most concerned about is his lack of aggression on O these days....He never catches and goes quick like he did when he was younger...He catches and holds...

Part of what made Gasol special was his ability to move pretty quick for a guy his size and get the edge taking the ball at heavier post players and then use his length and touch to score the ball on them.

Was he just that quick or did Lamar give him just that extra second or two? At this point it bears being looked at that maybe Lamar being as mobile, athletic, and skilled as he was gave Pau room and a moment to attack

No matter what your metric, Pau is slower. He shoots at a significantly lower percentage than he did in his glory years. He is probably done as a front line player.

I thought this was a story of Kobe moving into dancing...bummed

Would all be fine if he was making $8mill. But he's making $19! That's one of the highest paid players in the league. So mediocre just isn't good enough.

Yeah right! I'll believe it when I see it.

black swan "without its wings"?! that might fit him lol

So he scored on Hill and Sacre during practice. Big deal! We're talking about practice?! Really? Practice?

Now that my brotha, is the truth.

Black Swan sucked like always!

Unless he gets some fire under his belt he should be traded. I like the young guys on the team. I love Gasols skill set but we are losing because of no interior presence.

I was at work when I saw NBA TV showing clips from the game and Pau Gasol looked either too tired or just didn't give half a sh*t on the boards and interior defense. I used to be a big supporter of his but if he doesn't step up in some kind of way on the hustle-end of the ball I would be glad to see him gone. We need a tough inside presence, hopefully we can pick-up some good bigs in the upcoming draft. Possibly one of those sleepers from overseas (Omer Asik, Pekovic, Mozgov, etc)?

Anyone else certain Pau is going to be traded by the trade deadline?

i hope before then. to be honest with you, i think pau knows his days here are over and he's quit on us. wow.

Or, he might be giving us his greatest performance -- helping us lose so we can get a Lottery pick. Kobe alluded to a "strategy" that the FO had for his last two years. Maybe this is it!

I'm cool with that.

as far fetched as that sounds, it could very well be true. there just aren't words for how bad he is right now.