Three unanswered questions from the Toronto Raptors’ season

How healthy was Marc Gasol?

It had been a strange old season for Marc Gasol in his first full season with the Toronto Raptors. In his first season with the team, Gasol was an integral part of the Raptors run to their first-ever NBA championship – defeating the Golden State Warriors in the Finals.

Gasol provided superb interior defense, floor-spacing, and the knack to distribute the basketball at an elite level. He was the trade after the trade. Without him, the Raptors probably don’t go on to win the title. His performances against the likes of Joel Embiid, Nikola Vucevic, and DeMarcus Cousins were paramount to the success the team had.

This season was still productive from Gasol, even if the raw numbers told a different story. Gasol was averaging 7.6 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 3.4 assists on 42-percent shooting from the field and 40-percent from three. In the lowest-scoring season of his career, Gasol was still effective as a three-point shooter and as a presence in the paint, but his health proved to be a major concern.

Over his career, Marc Gasol has proved to be a durable figure, playing in over 831 games over 12 seasons in the NBA. For a player of his size, that’s pretty impressive – especially considering that he’s now 35 years old.

In the 2019-20 NBA season, Gasol featured in only 36 games, missing almost half of the Raptors schedule due to a few persistent injuries. Gasol has suffered two hamstring injuries this season, resulting in him missing significant time.

That’s a concern for any player, let alone a center in the twilight years of his career. With the playoffs fast approaching when the NBA went on to hiatus, Marc Gasol had just returned against the Sacramento Kings before missing the following game against the Utah Jazz on the second night of a back-to-back.

The Raptors would have likely eased Gasol back into a return, but how durable would he have been in the postseason?

With the Raptors short of depth at the center position, his presence on the court was even more vital than usual, but without him, the team would suffer. Just how much could they rely on Gasol down the stretch?