Is Marc Gasol really raising the Toronto Raptors’ ceiling?

The 2018-19 Toronto Raptors will never be described as cowardly. In almost any other situation, the five-year stretch they enjoyed from 2013 to 2018 would be considered a massive success: two likable stars in Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, 51 wins per season, five consecutive playoff berths and an Eastern Conference Finals appearance, capped off by a 59-win season and the East’s top overall seed in 2017-18. There are NBA teams that have gone decades without enjoying a run that successful.

And yet, Masai Ujiri and the Raptors refused to stay content. After suffering yet another elimination at the hands of LeBron James, it became clear that the franchise had hit their ceiling, well short of a championship. Opportunity knocked, and the blockbuster trade was made: DeMar DeRozan for Kawhi Leonard. Ujiri dropped the mic, steering Toronto onto a spectacularly bold path.

The Leonard trade will rightfully be remembered as one of the defining moments in franchise history, but it wasn’t the only step of this plan. February’s trade for long-time Memphis Grizzlies standout Marc Gasol also possesses a fascinating balance of risk and reward. The Raptors dealt a pair of 26-year-old role players who were instrumental to last season’s top seed for a 34-year-old likely to hit unrestricted free agency this summer. This is a tremendously bold move in and of itself. So what exactly did the Raptors buy for their troubles?

On paper, this is an upgrade. Gasol is a three-time All-Star, two-time All-NBA center and won Defensive Player of the Year in 2012. He’s one of the most cerebral players in basketball on both ends of the court, having anchored Memphis’ “Grit-and-Grind” defense for a decade while puppeteering their offense from the elbows. Very few NBA centers check as many boxes as Gasol: defensive anchor, offensive facilitator, paint finisher, 3-point shooter. In a vacuum, acquiring him for a reserve center and an offensively limited bench guard (who himself was replaced by the capable Jeremy Lin in the buy-out market) should raise your ceiling as a team.

Basketball isn’t played in a vacuum, however, and while this trade does raise Toronto’s ceiling, it places an array of unique challenges in the way of reaching that peak. Gasol is certainly an objectively better player than Valanciunas, but he’s also a different one, making this a more challenging calculus.

Specifically, the rapport between the departed Lithuanian center and franchise stalwart Kyle Lowry is one that can’t be overlooked. Valanciunas has grown into one of the league’s better screen-setters and finishers out of the pick-and-roll in recent years, ranking in the 77th percentile in points per possession (1.26) as a roll man for the Raptors this season, and Lowry has thrived off his skillset. In 1,916 minutes together since the start of last season, Lowry has an effective field goal percentage of 60 percent when sharing the court with Valanciunas.

This is a dynamic that Gasol is ill-suited to replicate, as he hasn’t ranked above the 50th percentile as a roll man since 2015.  He simply doesn’t have the same burst or physicality that Valanciunas does, especially at his advanced age. Instead, his game is a little more surgical; he uses elite court vision to create looks for his teammates and compensates for his declining mobility with a jumper that can connect from any range. Gasol is less Montrezl Harrell and more Al Horford.

The good news is that early returns on the new pairing have painted an encouraging picture of how the two can fit together. Though Gasol has struggled to find his own shot at times, he’s opened up plenty of looks for Lowry, who has an effective field goal percentage of 62 — including a 40 percent mark from the 3-point arc — when they share the court. Lowry has always performed best alongside a secondary facilitator, and Gasol is the first true fit for that role that the Raptors have employed this season.

Complicating this is the presence of Serge Ibaka, who has absorbed most of the minutes at the five for Toronto all season long. Nurse — like Dwane Casey before him — didn’t feature Valanciunas all that much, and thus far hasn’t seemed inclined to do so with Gasol, either. In his 30 games prior to the trade, Valanciunas played just 18.8 minutes per game, the lowest rate of his career and a continuation of a sharp decline in minutes over the past four seasons. The 11-year veteran Gasol, who has never played fewer than 30 minutes per game in a season, has seen just 22.8 minutes on average in his first nine games with Toronto.

Curiously, while Lowry seems to thrive alongside Gasol, he struggles when paired with Ibaka — and the rest of the roster performs to the inverse. Lowry has an effective field goal percentage of 48 when the two share the court, but the Raptors’ net rating improves by 6.4 points when Ibaka plays. Meanwhile, the Raptors are 1.3 points worse in net rating with Gasol on the court, even as Lowry shoots the cover off the ball in those situations. This is particularly evident on the defensive end, where the team improves by 4.3 points in defensive rating when Gasol sits.

The conundrum this all creates for the Raptors is spectacularly complex. The Raptors remain within striking distance of the top overall seed in the Eastern Conference, but with the Milwaukee Bucks seemingly slump-proof (they’ve lost consecutive games just once all season), they’re going to need to play near-perfect basketball to make it to the top. Right now, the team is better with Ibaka on the court. If the top seed is the goal, they can hardly afford to wait on Gasol to figure things out.

With an eye on the postseason, though, the Raptors ceiling is undeniably higher with Gasol at the helm of their frontcourt. These early struggles are to be expected: this is a player who has only ever played in the comfort of one city, for a franchise that has grown around his talents. Building a comfort level with the Raptors will take time, but time is something he’s yet to receive. That familiarity isn’t going to blossom with a mere 20 minutes per night, and if that’s all the time he’s going to see, why ship out two younger, more familiar players to bring him on board?

Looking ahead, the offseason plan seems inherently clear. If Leonard opts to stay in Toronto, the team can move to retain Gasol and remain contenders for the immediate future. If not, the team can move on from both at no real cost and pivot into a quick rebuild with the talent they already have. With both Lowry and Ibaka entering the final years of their contracts in the 2019-20 season, the Raptors have a remarkably clear cap sheet beyond 2020, well-positioned to transition towards a youth movement led by Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby.

In other words, the Raptors have pushed all their chips into the center of the table this season. Win a title, and they might just jump-start a new NBA dynasty. Fall short, and the franchise could enter a soul-searching transition into their next era. Ujiri is aware of the stakes, and the Marc Gasol trade — with all its inherent risk — is the natural evolution of that plan. Whether or not it pays off might be something we don’t truly discover for years yet to come.