Why Pau Gasol is no fantasy of mine…

(I would skip this post if you; a) like the Lakers, b) like Pau Gasol, or c) think that fantasy analysis should be based solely on statistics and not subjective, whiny opinion about dopey, annoying PF/C’s)

It’s time for some explaining. Below are Gasol’s numbers for last season:

18.3 points, 11.3 boards, 3.4 assists, 1.7 blocks, 0.6 steals, 53.6% FG on 13 attempts  and 79% FT on 5.6 attempts. He also commits 2.2 turnovers per game because he is a sucker. Anyway, as any fantasy guru will tell you, these are some pretty impressive numbers. In fact, nearly everyone agrees that this year he is a automatic first round pick.

I am here to try and show to you in some round about, semi logical, almost irrational way why you should not waste your precious picks on Pau Gasol in the first round.

1) Pau Gasol is not interesting. Try and stay with this because it’s important. Gasol will very often, as witnessed by his averages, drop a pretty sizable double-double. However it will be the most drib drab 18 and 12 you have ever seen. Post move, tip in, 6 foot jumper, tip in… repeat. Running the triangle is not the most forceful way to enliven your audience. What do you really want from your first round pick apart from top draw stats? You want to be amazed at least once a week at a box score which goes BANG (scroll to Rondo) and leaves you bedazzled. You want to be able to say to yourself, after your 2nd, 3rd and 4th round picks all shoot 43% and collect a combined 27 points between them, that it’s OK because your bomb diggy first round pick is still playing on the West Coast tonight and he is going to drop 40. Here are a list of players that can drop 40; LeBron, Wade, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Dirk, Kobe, Amar’e, Steph Curry, Danny Granger and Melo. Pau Gasol does not make that list despite his stats and he never will. I know points aren’t everything, but when someone scores a bucket load of points, you can say hello to minimum three categories (points, FG%, FT%) and probably others because of the effort which will require those points (steals, threes).

2) Pau Gasol is soft. Yes he is and don’t try and think otherwise. He gets pushed around by bigger centers and power forwards. He falls to the ground. He misses games. Recount; 17 last season, 16 in 2007-08, 23 the year before that. In all, that’s 57 in 4 seasons. Yuck. That’s Dwyane Wade before the 2008 Olympics bad.  That’s Danny Granger bad. Just think, you should now know that Andrew Bogut is probably going to miss about 4 weeks of the season (and it could be many more). Let’s say he does miss 4 weeks and about 15 games. Suddenly, he isn’t that third round pick everyone was talking about and it’s hello at pick 55. With Gasol, you don’t have the luxury of being able to plan around it because you don’t know when it’s going to come… and it will come. With Gasol, you know that Odom and Bynum will be there to ease back into it. With Gasol, you know that things will go slowly because he is on a contender and they don’t rush things like this. If you want some more evidence of why you don’t want this guy on your team because you will cop too much abuse from your friends when SportsCenter roles around, see here and flick to the 26 second mark.

3) Pau Gasol is a dick. He called out Kobe Bryant despite being infinitely inferior. He has a disgusting shaggy beard/haircut. I just needed to get this off my chest before we move on.

4) Pau Gasol cannot play as well as last season again. This one is the most important argument for fantasy in 2010-11. You might not agree here, but Andrew Bynum is going to pull it all together this season. The guy is a dead set beast and the Lakers will be feeding him the ball as much as possible this season. Gasol will see more rest as Theo Ratliff was signed for a reason. 37 minutes per game is too much and the Lakers reliance on him has been too great over the past two seasons. His struggles against the Celtics in the playoffs last season showcased the way to render his less effective and you can be sure that the rest of the Western Conference were watching. Over the past three seasons with the Lakers, his FG% has steadily dropped from a high of 59% to 53% last season. All of this points to the fact you can expect a drop off from Gasol this season. Not a massive one, but enough to suggest he is being slightly over-valued by the majority of fantasy speculators out there. Last year he was a late first rounder/early second round pick. Nothing has changed this year.

Let someone else worry about Pau Gasol and you enjoy some actual excitement with your first round pick.