How Marc Gasol Has Made Chris Wallace Look Smarter Than You Think

It seems like the entire world and their mother is under the impression that Memphis GM Chris Wallace just pawned Pau Gasol off on the Lakers for Kwame Brown's expiring contract and nothing more last January.

Please, for the love of everything good and holy left fighting for on this earth, let's dispel this myth right now.

The name "Marc" may not trump "Pau" when "Gasol" comes up in word association games, but Marc Gasol could be far more relevant long after his older brother has retired from the game.

The Grizzlies got the rights to Little Gasol (if you can call the hulking 7'1", 265-pound Marc Gasol that) back in January, but he was viewed largely as a throw-in.

After making a mark in the Beijing Games for the Spanish team this past summer, the 23-year-old Marc Gasol has come in as a rookie in Memphis and put up 12.0 points and 7.7 boards in his first 10 games in the NBA. And this is from a guy who was a late second-round pick in 2007.

On top of that, the Grizzlies have Gasol at a dirt-cheap rookie contract. While the older Gasol is making eight figures in the prime of his career, this Gasol is young enough to align his career symmetry with fellow Memphis stars O.J. Mayo and Rudy Gay.

His cheap deal also allows Wallace to be a player in free agency for the next several summers before locking up his version of the "Big Three" when the time comes.

Younger Gasol has been everything that his brother was when he came into the league—with less than half the hype and salary. Marc is shooting 56.4 percent from the field, averaging a block per game, and putting up a monster 27-point, 16-rebound game earlier this month in just his fourth contest in the NBA, a 90-79 Grizzlies win.

He even came right out of the gate firing by logging a double-double in his first game as a pro, posting 12 points and 12 boards against the competitive Houston Rockets to start off his rookie campaign.

While Mayo and Gay have combined to start forming what could be one of the most devastating 1-2 punches in the league, Gasol has complemented the two perimeter players nicely with a good low-post game and an affinity for the dirty work.

It took his older brother several years to shed the "soft" label and become the bruiser that he is today with the Lakers, but Marc Gasol has already shown that he has the attitude and the edge to bang bodies inside and do what it takes to do his job every night.

Kwame Brown's contract is long gone, but don't you dare make the mistake of thinking of him as the key piece Wallace targeted in January. The Grizzlies GM pretty much cloned Pau, made him five years younger, and cut his salary by over 90 percent.

So why do people keep taking shots at Wallace and talking about him as if they could do his job better?

If you read and listen to the mass media that covers the league (even casually), you'd be convinced that the Grizzlies got Brown for Pau Gasol and absolutely nothing else.

You'd ignore the fact that Marc Gasol is developing just as well as his older brother did in the same city seven years ago.

You'd ignore the fact that Wallace saved a ton of cash to lay the groundwork for a dynamic young nucleus, and that he will have a ton of money to throw around as well as draft picks to keep adding to this young Memphis team.

With Pau Gasol, Wallace would have just kept treading water, given the player's age and massive contract. With the 23-year-old Marc Gasol, who is playing for the NBA equivalent of slave wages due to his status as a second-round pick, the Grizzlies finally have a vision and a future along with a familiar name to carry them into the next phase of their franchise.

Maybe the Lakers will continue to prove that they won this trade in the end. Maybe Pau Gasol will help Kobe Bryant win that elusive fourth championship ring. And maybe Marc Gasol will continue to be known as Pau's little brother.

But until then, recognize this right now: Chris Wallace has set up the Memphis Grizzlies for an incredibly successful run in the years to come. And it's why he—and not the fans who think he only got Kwame Brown in return—is running an NBA team.