NBA free agency rumors: Portland Trail Blazers aggressively after Pau Gasol

The Portland Trail Blazers aren’t going to stop spending in 2016 NBA free agency. They reportedly are going hard after veteran big man Pau Gasol.

According to Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical of Yahoo! Sports, “After agreeing to $70 million deal with Evan Turner, Portland [Trail Blazers] aggressively pursuing Pau Gasol.”

While Portland general manager Neil Olshey will take a lot of flak for overpaying to bring Turner off the bench in a sixth man role, if the Trail Blazers are able to land a future Hall of Famer in Gasol, then Portland has a real shot at orchestrating a deep run in next year’s NBA Playoffs.

Gasol maybe in the twilight of his illustrious NBA career, but would provide both the veteran presence and the strong front court play that the Trail Blazers lacked in 2015-16.

The dynamic backcourt duo of point guard Damian Lillard and shooting guard C.J. McCollum was exciting, but wasn’t effective enough to top the juggernaut Golden State Warriors in the 2016 Western Conference Semifinals.

Gasol clearly wants to play for a winning franchise in the last few years of his career. That’s a huge reason behind why he wasn’t going to go back to the Chicago Bulls. Chicago might be on the precipice of a rebuild.

With Portland, Gasol will be a huge piece on a certain playoff team in the deep Western Conference. He’ll also get to play with a great ball distributor in Lillard, something he couldn’t exactly count on with ball-dominant Derrick Rose the last two years.

It’ll come down to money and since Portland is a small market not known for landing marquee free agents, Olshey will again have to overpay to get a player of Gasol’s caliber to come to the Pacific Northwest.

For more NBA free agency news, please check out our NBA free agency category page.