“Sure enough, the sky darkened and you look in the doorway, and here is this massive human being,” Van Hoozer said. “It was exciting.”
Long before he became a standout center with the Grizzlies and the N.B.A.’s defensive player of the year, Marc Gasol moved to Memphis with his family from Spain. He was 16, barely spoke English and stood nearly 7 feet tall. He was just an overgrown boy living in his older brother’s shadow.
But as Pau Gasol prepared for his rookie season with the Grizzlies, Marc set about on his own journey. It started at Lausanne, where he played high school basketball for two seasons. No one considered the possibility that he would someday lead the Grizzlies into the playoffs, or that he would become the face of the franchise.
“He has a connection to this city like nobody else on the team,” point guard Mike Conley said.
On Saturday, Gasol led the Grizzlies to an 87-81 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 3 of their second-round playoff series. Gasol finished with 20 points, 9 rebounds and 4 assists, a typical effort for him as Memphis took a 2-1 series lead. Each baseline jumper was punctuated by a surge from the crowd at FedExForum.
“He is beloved here,” said Chris Wallace, the Grizzlies’ general manager.
The foundation was formed more than a decade ago, when Gasol’s entire family — Agusti, Marisa and their three boys, Pau, Marc and Adria — relocated to a three-bedroom apartment in nearby Germantown. Pau, gainfully employed, got his own room. Marc and Adria had to share one.
“It felt like home,” Marc Gasol said. At Lausanne, Gasol developed a feel for the game while dominating lesser competition. The school was not a member of a strong conference. Van Hoozer recalled games that were played in cafeterias with linoleum floors. As a senior, Gasol averaged 26 points, 13 rebounds, 6 blocked shots and 5 assists.
“I was just having fun because everybody was so much shorter than me,” Gasol said. “Honestly, my stats in high school were ridiculous. They made no sense.”
His game was unconventional. He was the rare 7-footer who had the green light to launch 3-pointers on fast breaks. Whenever the team built up a big early lead, the coaching staff would have Gasol play on the perimeter, just so he “wouldn’t dominate so much,” Peters said.
Some opponents tried to slow the tempo. Playing with no shot clock was a foreign concept to Gasol, and no small annoyance. He was not shy about voicing his frustration.
“These kids would hold the ball for the entire game, so I’d yell at the referees,” he said. “I got called for so many technicals.”
He could have been whistled for more, according to a former teammate, Jonnie West. “He’d cuss in Spanish,” West said. “The refs had no idea what he was saying.”
The team was a motley crew. Several players were from Europe. Others came from tough parts of Memphis. There was an unusual chemistry at work. Jerry West, a basketball legend who was then the general manager of the Grizzlies, made regular appearances at practice to watch his son Jonnie. He liked to be involved.
“He was very respectful of the coaches,” Van Hoozer said. “He would say, ‘Coach Peters, would you mind if I stopped practice?’ ‘No, Mr. West. Go right ahead.’ And then he would huddle the kids up. Sometimes, he’d really get on them. The whole thing was kind of surreal.”
As for Gasol, Van Hoozer said he could not have been more unassuming about his position on the team. Though his brother was a celebrity with a contract worth millions, Gasol blended into the framework. It probably had to do with the way he was raised, said Van Hoozer, who cited a trip the team made to Orlando, Fla., for a tournament. The team rented a bus for the 12-hour ride, and Van Hoozer figured that Gasol’s parents would fly down and meet everyone in Florida.
“Nope,” Van Hoozer said. “They rode the bus with the team. Sat quietly in the back. Marc got two seats.”
When Lausanne faced Briarcrest Christian School in the regional finals his senior year, Gasol found himself matched up against an imposing player named Michael Oher — the same Michael Oher who went on to become the principal subject of Michael Lewis’s book “The Blind Side,” and an offensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens. He was, in short, a wrecking ball.
It was fairly obvious, Peters said, that Briarcrest wanted to use Oher’s substantial girth to force Gasol away from the hoop. Gasol responded with his outside game. He drilled a 15-foot jumper for an early lead, and Lausanne sailed to a 69-40 victory.
As skilled as he was, Gasol was far from the most impressive physical specimen. He weighed more than 300 pounds (“He had some baby fat,” Peters said) and was waging a futile campaign against gravity. (“He could barely dunk,” Jonnie West said.) He would make an occasional cameo at the Grizzlies’ practice facility to work with his brother, who challenged him to games of one-on-one. These were not the most tightly contested affairs.
“Pau would just stand there and swat his shot away,” said Grizzlies Coach Lionel Hollins, who was an assistant at the time.
Though several midmajor college programs recruited him and the University of Memphis offered him a spot as a walk-on, Gasol said he knew he needed to return to Spain to focus on basketball. Going to college would not help his development enough.
“I had to start over from scratch,” he said.
Gasol joined F.C. Barcelona, a top professional team. He lost weight, improved his low-post game and stopped treating 3-pointers as if they were air he needed to breathe.
When the Grizzlies visited Spain to play an exhibition against F.C. Barcelona in October 2003, Gasol suited up for the home team. Hollins, who remembered only the pudgy teenager demolished by his older brother in games of one-on-one, said he barely recognized him.
“I was like, ‘Wow, that’s not the same kid,’ ” Hollins said.
Gasol spent five seasons in Spain and was named the league’s top player in 2008. But when the Lakers traded his rights to the Grizzlies that February as part of a deal that sent Pau Gasol to Los Angeles, Grizzlies fans were apoplectic.
“The trade was not well received,” said Wallace, the team’s general manager. “Nobody from Memphis who had any familiarity with Marc from high school — and chose to express their opinion to me — thought that there was any remote chance he could play in the N.B.A.”
As it turned out, the deal was a solid one for the Grizzlies. Gasol was a different player when he returned to Memphis: stronger, more skilled, more mature. He also became immensely popular among fans, who appreciated his no-nonsense style of play.
“He’s one of our own,” Van Hoozer said.
In the end, it was all about finding his way back to where it began.
@ Marc lookin like Donkeylips from Salute Your Shorts
every time.
for the reference.
fukk ass lakers fans