Kevin Love For Pau Gasol?

Right before the 2011 NBA Draft, there were rumors circulating of a potential trade of Kevin Love and the 2nd overall pick for Pau Gasol.

Many people found this to be a steal for the Lakers, but I believed otherwise. Here's my thoughts:

Pau is better. He's taller. He's longer. He's better defensively. Much more of a threat for blocks in the paint. He's a better passer. He's a MUCH better scorer.

Now I know you're immediately going to say "but Kevin Love averages 20 points and Pau averages 19".

Pau averaged 19 points with the leagues 5th leading scorer on his team, and being the number two option.

Kevin Love put up 20 points a game being the number one option on his team, and the only other legit scoring threat on his team being Michael Beasley.

Pau spent the majority of his whole career being the number one option in Memphis. And as I stated earlier, he averaged 17.5 - 21 points per game his whole time there.

Not too add, he took that team to THREE STRAIGHT PLAYOFF APPEARANCES, and had winning seasons there with a sub-par supporting cast. Something Kevin Love has yet to do. He's the number one option and has yet to help that team win more than 17 games in a season.

Not too add Pau shoots a much better field goal percentage than him.

AND Pau has never averaged less than 17.5 points per game his WHOLE CAREER. Meaning, his rookie season included.

Kevin Love averaged 11 and 14 points respectively his first 2 seasons.

AND most of Kevin Love's points come from put backs, threes, or hitting a mid range jumper.

Outside of hitting threes, Pau does ALL of that AND he has a post game which is HUGE for a PF.

The only thing Kevin Love has on Pau is his age and rebounding.

The Lakers were 3rd in the league in rebounding last year, so rebounding isn't an issue that needs to be addressed.

And at the age of 30, Pau has atleast 2-3 years of continuing to play at this level. Maybe even more because he's only been in the NBA 9 years, which is not a lot for someone his age, and he has no history of injury.

Why would a team that is already third in the league as a team in rebounding, want to give up everything that Pau offers you that Kevin Love doesn't in order to be a little bit better of a rebounding team and a get a little younger at 1 position? (And let's be real here, he's not going to be putting up those same rebounding numbers playing next to Andrew Bynum)

Now, the main issues with taking that #2 pick is:
A. If you make the pick, Derrick Williams is more than likely not going to be more than a bench player to small time starter in this league. Yeah, he could prove scouts wrong, but that's the more than likely what's going to happen. He's a tweener who is shaky on a lot of the skills needed for his position(s).

B. You don't know what's going to come of that draft pick in such a shaky draft class. It's WAY too much of a risk.

C. With this draft class being weak, the value of that pick is a lot lower, and so the trade value for it isn't what you would get in typical years. Why do you think there's so much talk of these struggling teams wanting to trade these high picks away?

I just think there's an overreaction to the Lakers most recent playoff loss. They don't go to the finals for the 4th year in a row and everyone immediately wants to hit the panic button and blow up what's worked 3 out of the last 4 years. There was ZERO talk of even possibly trading Pau before now. The idea of trading Pau before his most recent playoff performance would have been LAUGHED at.

The issue for most of this season (outside of the playoffs) wasn't Pau. It was a need for a more athletic and better shooting swing man, youth and consistent shooting at the PG position, and more consistent bench play.

Those are the issues that need to be addressed and they don't get addressed in this trade scenario.

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