Congrats to the Lakers for being able to get a super soft Euro that could not score more than 19 points as the focal point of a crappy team. Think Memo Okur in 05-06 when Boozer was faking his hamstring injury and Jerry woulld not let the rookie D-Will get off the bench. Personally he reminds me of the giant from the Johnny and the magic bean nursery rhyme. Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, I don't take showers and look like a bum.
If you believe all of the talking heads out there this trade makes the Lakers the team to beat. They might even run off 45 straight wins to close out the season. I just don't see it. Gasol is a nice player for sure, but not enough to put the Lakers into the finals. I have watched him play against the Jazz for quite some time now and in my opinion he is in no way a game changer. To prove my point, lets play the trade game - if you were to swap Memo for Gasol would the Jazz be significantly better? I say no, in fact I think they might be a little worse off because Pau can not hit a big game winning shot when needed. He always seems to fade in the fourth quarter during close games. Time will tell, but I say getting Gasol for the Lakers is worth 2 or 3 more wins this year than they otherwise would have had and at best gets them out of the first round, but no further.