The 2012-2013 season has been one to forget for Los Angeles Lakers power forward Pau Gasol.
Actually, he’s had a number of forgettable seasons since helping the team win two championships and picking up the label “best power forward in the league” in the process.
It all seemed to begin when Phil Jackson left the team after getting swept in the playoffs by the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of the 2010-2011 season. Gasol did not perform well (he shot just 42 percent in that series), rumors began to swirl about his status with the team, and things kept going down hill from there.
Mike Brown took over the team as the head coach in the following season and stripped Gasol of the second go-to-guy role in favor of Andrew Bynum. Since then, the Spaniard never quite looked like the player he once was. He appeared to be lost on an island out in the perimeter, left to wonder why he had to sacrifice his abilities in the post while watching Bynum try to do everything in his stead. It obviously didn’t work, as the Oklahoma City Thunder dispatched the Lakers in just five games last season in the Conference semifinals.
Then came in Mike D’Antoni, who generally dislikes the idea of posting up bigs and decided, at times, to bring Gasol off the bench. You can only imagine how the big man felt at this point. To make matters that much worse, he strained his plantar fascia in February and missed 20 games. In all, Gasol missed 33 games this season – the most in his 12-year career.
Naturally, people have speculated about his status as a Lakers player due to his struggles and inability to fit in – be it in D’Antoni’s offense or having to play alongside someone as demanding as Dwight Howard. Gasol has already stated that things need to change next season, and we know he cant accept the idea of coming off the bench, so something will have to give in the offseason.
In the meantime, though, Gasol concluded his season with a procedure on both his knees in hopes of coming back a much stronger player for next season. As it turns out, tendonosis is something he has had to deal with all season long, which somewhat explains his career-low 13.7 points on 46.6 percent shooting. The procedure will sideline him for up to three months. Here are the details, from Dave McMenamin of ESPN Los Angeles: