Regular visitors of Notinhalloffame.com know that we are slowly working on the top 50 of every major team in the NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB.  Once that is done, we intend to look at how each team honor their past players, coaches and executives.  As such, it is important to us that the

Memphis Grizzlies will retire Marc Gasol’s number 33 on April 6.

From Spain, Gasol was originally drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers in 2007, but did not play for them initially as his rights was traded to Memphis along with his older brother, Pau.  Gasol played for the Grizzlies from 2008 to 2019, where he won the 2013 Defensive Player of the Year, and racked up a First Team All-NBA in 2014-15 and Second Team All-NBA in 2012-13.  The two-time World Cup Champion and two-time Olympic Silver Medalist is the all-time franchise leader in the following categories:

Games: 788
Minutes: 25,917
Field Goals: 4,341
Free Throws: 2,701
Defensive Rebounds: 4,624
Rebounds: 5,942
Blocks: 1,135

Gasol was traded to the Toronto Raptors in 2019, where he won an NBA Championship.

This announcement makes Gasol the second player to have his number retired by the Grizzlies following Zach Randolph, who saw his number 50 hung to the rafters in 2021.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate Marc Gasol for this impending honor.

As always, we here at Notinhalloffame.com continue to add and modify our sections, and as such, we are pleased to announce additions to our Basketball Futures.

Specifically, the Basketball Futures look at those who will be eligible in the upcoming years for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, and it allows us to gauge your votes and comments about the players so we can better rank them once eligible.

Added to the 2024 Basketball Futures are:

Corey Brewer:  Brewer won two NCAA Titles with Florida and on the pro level, he was an NBA Champion with Dallas in 2011.

DeMarre Carroll:  Carroll was the January 2005 Co-Player of the Month, and spent his best seasons with Atlanta.

J.R. Smith:  Smith was the 2012-13 Sixth Man of the Year and he would win a title with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020.

Kyle Korver:  Korver was a star at Creighton, and would later earn a trip to the All-Star Game as an Atlanta Hawk in 2015.

Ryan Anderson:  Anderson was named the Most Improved Player of the Year in 2011-12.

Tyson Chandler:  Chandler won the 2012/13 Defensive Player of the Year and was an Olympic Gold Medalist for the United States in 2012.

They join Jamal Crawford and Joakim Noah.

The entire 2024 Basketball Futures can all be found here.

Marc Gasol:  Gasol won the NBA Defensive Player of the Year and late in his career an NBA Title with the Toronto Raptors.  The longtime Memphis Grizzlies star won two FIBA World Cups with Spain.

He joins J.J Redick.

The entire 2025 Basketball Futures can all be found here.

Look for us to continue to add to these in the future.

As always, we look forward to your feedback, and thank you for your support!

The younger brother of Pau Gasol, Marc Gasol carved a spectacular career in his own right and is far more than just the "second best" Gasol.

Gasol first arrived in the NBA with the Memphis Grizzlies in 2008, and he played there for over ten seasons, going to three All-Star Games, albeit on a level of obscurity, considering Memphis was not very good when he played.  The Spanish Center developed into one of the better defensive players who still could score, as shown by his eight 14-plus PPG years.  Twice named an All-NBA player, Gasol won the 2012-13 Defensive Player of the Year, again a fantastic accomplishment considering how rare Memphis was on any form of national television.

Late in his career, Gasol was traded to the Toronto Raptors, and his veteran presence aided the Raps in winning their first NBA Championship (2019).  Gasol concluded his NBA career with a final year as a Laker, but he will (and should be) remembered as one of the greatest Grizzlies of all time.

If you go by Gasol's NBA career, he might not have a Hall of Fame resume, but never forget the international components matter in Springfield.  A champion in the Spanish Leagues before he came to the States, Gasol represented Spain many times, winning two Olympic Silver Medals, two World Cup Gold Medals, and five medals (two Gold, one Silver, and two Bronze) in Eurobasket.  That is a big deal, making Gasol one of the most successful International players ever.

Yes, we know that this is taking a while!

As many of you know, we here at Notinhalloffame.com are slowly generating the 50 of each major North American sports team.  That being said, we have existing Top 50 lists out and we always consistently look to update them when we can and based on necessity.  As such, we are very happy to present our pre-2021-22 revision of our top 50 Toronto Raptors.

As for all of our top 50 players in basketball we look at the following: 

1.  Advanced Statistics.

2.  Traditional statistics and how they finished in the NBA. 

3.  Playoff accomplishments.

4.  Their overall impact on the team and other intangibles not reflected in a stat sheet.

Please note, that this is our first revision in four years, which includes the 2019 Championship Season.  This has resulted in many changes, and nine new entries, and a brand new number one, Kyle Lowry, who climbed from his number four slot.

As always, we present our top five immediately, though nothing has changed in this upper-tier.

1. Kyle Lowry

2. Chris Bosh

3. Vince Carter

4. DeMar DeRozan

5. Jose Calderon

You can find the entire list here.

There is a lot more than Kyle Lowry’s ascendence to the top.

Pascal Siakam, who was an All-Star last year, enters at #7.

Kawhi Leonard, whose playoff heroics won the Raptors a title comes in at #11.

Starting Point Guard, Fred Van Vleet debuts at #12.

Norman Powell moved from #50 to #19.

Small Forward, O.G. Anunoby makes his first appearance at #23.

Center, Chris Boucher enters at #24.

Former Raptor Guard, Delon Wright, is #30.

Another former Raptor, Jakob Poeltl, is ranked #40.

Marc Gasol, who also is no longer with Toronto, is #44.

Danny Green, another one-year Raptor on the 2019 Championship winning team, is at #47.

We definitely won’t wait four years on this one again!

We welcome your input and comments and as always, we thank you for your support.

It can be argued that the missing piece of Toronto’s puzzle was Marc Gasol, a three-time All-Star with Memphis, whose veteran presence the Raptors gave up Jonas Valincuinas for.  It was a heavy cost, but it worked out.

Gasol was not as productive as J.V. in terms of stats, but he was a proven veteran who helped to alter the team chemistry.  The Spaniard was fantastic for Toronto after the trade, and he helped the Raptors win the 2019 NBA Championship.

Gasol played one more year with Toronto, providing defense and leadership before he traveled back west to join the Lakers, his older brother's former team.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com are always looking to add new sections to our website.  Last month, we uploaded our top 100 active NFL players and how their Hall of Fame resumes stack up.  

We are doing the exact same thing with the NBA.

As opposed to 100 like we did in Football, we are going with only 50 in Basketball.  

We liked the idea that we used in Football with a modern “Modern Positional Average”, so we are doing something similar here.  With advanced analytics, we decided that we don’t have to isolate based on position so they are all on one list.

Inspired by Jay Jaffe’s JAWS statistic that looks at the best seven-year stretch of a baseball player according to bWAR, we are doing the same with current basketball players.  Specifically, we compiled the average PER, Win Shares and VORP for each of the past Hall of Famers based on their best seven-year period.  The additional thinking behind this is that in Basketball, there is an additional focus on periods of greatness as opposed to sports like Baseball, where compiling statistics is more glorified.

To keep everything modern, the average we used is the last 14 inductees, but only the ones who were Modern Era Inductees.  This excludes Direct-Elect Candidates (contributors, Early African-American Pioneers, International and Veterans).  The only exception is Vlade Divac, who was chosen via the International Committee, but has a healthy NBA career to draw upon.

As of this writing, the 14 players from the last four induction classes who we are using for the composite averages are:

Ray Allen, Maurice Cheeks, Vlade Divac, Bobby Jones, Grant Hill, Allen Iverson, Jason Kidd, Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming, Sidney Moncrief, Steve Nash, Shaquille O’Neal, Jack Sikma and Paul Westphal. 

While we are not looking at traditional statistics, we are averaging out All-Star Games and All-NBA Selections.  With the latter, we are looking at this in weighted fashion.  In terms of Third Team All-NBA Selections, one point will be assigned, Second Team All-NBA Selections will have two points will be granted, and First Team All-NBA Selections will have three points.  

Here are the averages:

Based on their elite seven-year stretch the average PER of the last 14 Modern Era Hall of Famers is 21.5.

Based on their elite seven-year stretch, the average Win Shares of the last 14 Modern Era Hall of Famers is 65.1.

Based on their elite seven-year stretch, the average VORP of the last 14 Modern Era Hall of Famers is 27.8.

With All-Star and All-NBA Selections, we look at the entire career of the player.  

The average All-Star Selections of the last 14 Modern Era Hall of Famers is 7.4.

The average All-Pro Selections (based on the pointed average of one for a Third Team, two for a Second Team and three for a First Team Selection) is 9.8.

We are also adding NBA Championships. Often,  players in this team sport more than any other (except for NFL Quarterbacks) are judged by the number of rings they have.  Perhaps, that shouldn't be as regarded as it is, considering the average amount of titles of our last 14 Modern Era Hall of Famers is less than 1.  Specifically, it is 0.79.

Wrapping this up in a bow, the six variables we are looking at Elite Period PER, Elite Period Win Shares, Elite Period VORP, All-Star Games, Weighted All-Pro Selections, NBA Championships.

This will be a regular feature on Notinhalloffame.com, and we will be updating this at the end of the season.

You can find our new section HERE.

As always, we here at Notinhalloffame.com thank all of you for your support!

Three (people) come to mind immediately in terms of what we consider the Hall of Fame elevator.

Marc Gasol:  Elevator up.  Gasol made history as the second player (after Lamar Odom) to win an NBA Championship and a World Cup Gold Medal in the same calendar year.  Gasol made the all-tournament team is a three-time All-Star from his time in Memphis and was the Defensive Player of the Year in 2012-13. The Spanish star was also a former First Team All-NBA Selection in 2014-15.

Luis Scola:  Elevator up.  Currently playing in the Chinese League, Scola was also an all-tournament team selection. Representing Argentina on the International level, Scola would become the second leading scorer (behind Brazil’s Oscar Schmidt) in World Cup Scoring and he won his second Silver Medal in this tournament.  He has also won a Gold Medal in the 2004 Olympics, Bronze in the 2008 Olympics, Gold at the Pan-American Games and in the AmeriCup, he had two Gold Medals, four Silver Medals and three Bronze Medals.

Team U.S.A.:  All of them on a stalled elevator where anyone of them would have rocketed two floors.  When star after star pulled out of Team U.S.A., they were expected to falter, but a seventh-place finish is disastrous.  Had the Americans won Gold with one (or multiple) players leading the charge that player(s) would have a major feather in their cap taking an underdog U.S. team to a title.

We are also in the process of unveiling are top 50 active Basketball Players for Hall of Fame consideration.  It will be in a similar format of our Football List, which we uploaded last month.