When Marc Gasol was a free agent in November, one of the reasons he decided to sign with the Lakers was a recognition of his impending basketball mortality.

He loved his time in Toronto, he said, but “I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to be the player that they needed me to be there in order to win it.” With the Lakers, Gasol knew, he wouldn’t have to fill as big of a footprint alongside two of the NBA’s biggest stars.

But the expectation the 36-year-old had was that there would always be minutes to fill. Suddenly with the signing of Andre Drummond, Gasol’s role has shrunk past the point he’s comfortable with – not only will he not start when the 27-year-old Drummond returns from his toe injury, he’s likely to sit out some games entirely.

It was hard to keep the disappointment from seeping through on Friday night when Gasol addressed the media for the first time since the move. Asked directly if he wants to remain with the Lakers for the rest of the season or seek a buyout of his own, Gasol hedged.

“Things can change quickly in the NBA just as they have changed for me,” he said. “But, I’m committed to this team. It’s a hard pill to swallow because I know I’m going to be out of the lineup at some point. It’s never easy on a player. As a basketball player, you want to play. You want to contribute, especially when you made that commitment for that reason. But, we’ll see.”

To be clear, the Lakers want to keep Gasol – who entered the season as a feel-good story after signing a two-year contract with the franchise that drafted him 13 years ago, hoping he could help win a title with the team the way his older brother Pau, had won two alongside Kobe Bryant. Friday night’s win in Sacramento was good evidence why: The veteran center had five points, nine rebounds and six assists, and the Lakers outscored the Kings by 20 points during his 28 minutes.

“He dominated the game tonight with five points, OK?” Coach Frank Vogel said. “And this is what Marc brings to the table.”

The camps who criticize Gasol for low counting statistics and those who admire his game represent drastically different viewpoints in basketball. The long-time Memphis Grizzlies star has seen his scoring and rebounding diminish to role player levels (career-lows of 4.8 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 40.3% shooting), and without injured All-Stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis, those minuscule numbers – even compared to the stats he produced for the Raptors last season – don’t impress box-score scanners.

And yet Gasol contributes in a number of ways not totally captured by conventional stats. He boxes out to let others grab rebounds. He brings order to the Lakers’ offensive and defensive schemes. He facilitates from the top of the arc. While his most mobile days are well behind him, as a positional defender, he more than holds his own against most bigs. Coming back from a nine-game absence after contracting COVID-19, Gasol injected some needed life and size into the lineup.

So even though Vogel acknowledged that Gasol will not play every game down the stretch, he will play.

“I think people need to understand how good of a player Marc Gasol is and how valuable he is to what we’re doing,” Vogel said. “And we’re going to play our most important players so he’s going to help us win a championship this year. That’s the plan. That’s the vision.”

It might be a luxury to have two big men as talented as Drummond and Gasol who do different things on the court, but it isn’t easy to coexist with only so many minutes at center – and Davis’ eventual return will likely take up even more of those shifts (especially in the playoffs). The conundrum teams with as much talent as the Lakers face is how to keep a player like Gasol engaged even as his role gets squeezed.

Gasol said he understands Vogel’s insistence that the Lakers will need both him and Drummond to win a championship, but he said that sentiment has “an asterisk” attached.

“I think there’s an ‘if’ – ‘if’ they need you. And it’s a big ‘if,’” Gasol said. “You’re not Plan A right now. You’re Plan C, D. … You have to accept it because that’s your job, and that’s what you sign up to do. It’s never easy to accept that, especially when you ask if you’ve done something wrong when you try to do everything for the team.”

Gasol, by all accounts, hasn’t done much wrong, but 27-year-old two-time All-Stars don’t become available on minimum salaries every day. The Lakers have a chance to have it all.

It just means Gasol will have less.

“It’s life, you have to adapt.” @MarcGasol comments on adapting to the difficult decision of not being part of the starting role. pic.twitter.com/0s3bZG1pT4

— Spectrum SportsNet (@SpectrumSN) April 3, 2021

Frank Vogel on the #Lakers executing the game plan against the Kings, @kylekuzma‘s performance and Marc Gasol’s role change. pic.twitter.com/IKhezpxMKd

— Spectrum SportsNet (@SpectrumSN) April 3, 2021

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