The Pau Gasol Trade: Los Angeles Lakers, Before and After

The Lakers were one of the best teams in the league when emerging center Andrew Bynum was healthy, and the team was clicking with Bynum and Lamar Odom as the second and third options.

Then, Bynum's great season was abruptly interrupted when he injured his knee going up for a rebound on January 13 against the Memphis Grizzlies. At the time, the Lakers expected Bynum to be out for eight weeks, and hoped to have him back by the end of March.

However, without Bynum's presence inside, the Lakers struggled mightily, going 4-4. They reverted back to the Lakers teams of the last few years, with Kobe having to score 35 points for the Lakers to win.

Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak knew there was a chance the Lakers, who had been looking like title contenders, could possibly miss the playoffs entirely, due to the West's overall depth. But on February 1 (one day after a heartbreaking loss to Detroit where Tayshaun Prince made a game winning three), Kupchak pulled off one of the biggest robberies in NBA History, acquiring All Star big man Pau Gasol without giving up any of the team's top ten players.

In return, the Grizzlies received Kwame Brown's $9 million expiring contract, a couple of first round picks, and a couple of good young players—Javaris Crittenton and Pau's brother Marc Gasol.

Instantly, you could tell the Lakers were given a boost. On the same day that his team got Gasol, Kobe Bryant destroyed the poor Toronto Raptors, scoring 46 points—including several highlight plays—in a rout.

Gasol would play his first game as a Laker a few days later, when the New Jersey Nets hosted the Lakers. Gasol's impact was immediate, as the Lakers won despite Kobe having one of his worst games in his career. (Bryant scored six points and had seven TOs while shooting 3-13 from the field. 

The Lakers still won that game—and then they went on to win 22 of the 27 games they played with Pau. By the end of the season, Los Angeles had the best record in the mighty Western Conference, after surviving the greatest regular-season race of all time.

Bynum's knee never seemed to heal entirely, and now there is realistically no chance of him playing again this season, even if the Lakers made the Finals. Today, the Lakers announced that Bynum will be undergoing arthroscpic knee surgery on Wednesday, and the timetable of his return will be known later that day.

Now, the debate is whether the Lakers were better with a healthy Bynum and no Gasol or Pau with no Andrew. With Gasol, the Lakers are a better passing team because of Gasol's ability to find his teammates in the post and are a little bit better offensively because Odom has been flourishing playing alongside Gasol.

The negatives of the roster with Gasol are that the Lakers are a weak rebounding team, because of Gasol's reliance on finesse playm, and are only average defensively. With Bynum, the Lakers were the best rebounding team in the league as well as one of the best defensive teams, but they weren't as efficient offensively.

My personal opinion is that the Lakers would be a little bit better with Bynum, because he is a defensive force in the middle and is a rebounding machine. One thing all people can agree on is that next season, when Bynum is healthy and Gasol is there, no team in the league will be able to match up with the Lakers. 

Los Angeles will have one of the greatest frontcourts of all time, with Bynum at center, Pau at power forward, and Odom at small forward. They also still have a guy named Kobe Bryant at shooting guard, who is pretty good, and a great veteran leader at point guard in Derek Fisher.

Barring any injuries, it's safe to say that Lakers will win four or five championships over the next eight years, and become one of the league's greatest dynasties.