Marc Gasol's Memphis Masterpiece

A Grizzlies legend takes his rightful place - home, in Memphis

This is a guest column for “Marc Gasol Appreciation Week” on SubTsakalidis. The author of this column is Joe Mullinax, who covered Gasol and the “Grit ‘n’ Grind” era for SB Nation’s Grizzly Bear Blues. Joe is a mentor to me and many others in the Memphis media blog-o-sphere.

Marc Gasol’s basketball odyssey has taken him across continents and oceans. His legacy is that of a globetrotter - the Barcelona kind, not Harlem. A native son and national team icon in Spain. A champion in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

And after this week, a permanent Memphis legend forever in the rafters of whichever building the Grizzlies call home.

The retirement of Gasol’s number is a fitting tribute to arguably the best player to ever don Beale Street Blue. No Grizzlies player until Ja Morant’s meteoric rise had the type of individual success that Marc did as a member of the roster for over a decade. And no Memphis sports figure has combined that sustained skill with significance to those around him quite like Marc.

But what makes Gasol mean so much to the city of Memphis, beyond his basketball accolades, is that regardless of how the outside world perceives Marc - however they choose to remember who and what he was - Memphis already knows exactly who Gasol is.

He’s a Memphian. A representative of what makes the city and community so special.

No, he’s not a life-long 901 resident, but he spent formative years in and around the city as his older brother Pau - who he eventually was traded for to join the Grizzlies - helped launch the franchise in Memphis. And in many ways, he’s been there one way or another ever since.

And no, he’s not your typical “hooper”. His game was always more cerebral than active, more artistic than athletic. He never lept over an adversary, or sprinted to an electric finish on the fast break. But the beauty in his work wasn’t lost on those that watched it on a nightly basis.

From game-winning buckets to defensive dominance, Gasol made his mark all over the Memphis record books and Grizzlies franchise firsts. The first Defensive Player of the Year. The first All-Star Game starter. On and on and around you can go, be it on YouTube or the team’s website, spending hours falling down the rabbit hole of the understated brilliance in the game of Marc Gasol.

He was like a painter, each pass a stroke of a brush, each block a part of a sketch of what he saw the game to be. He was deliberate and delicate, forceful yet filled with finesse. Be it his own physical evolution in terms of his build as he aged or his skill set itself as he added three point shooting to his arsenal over time, he was himself an unfinished piece of art.

And that’s quite relatable, isn’t it? We’re all varying forms of our own laborious pursuit of what we see as our life’s work. For Marc, he mastered the balance of finding that place in the arena of life while also being what was needed beyond his labors.

His work with St. Jude and other charities in and around the city is almost as legendary as his career on the court. He became a husband, a father during his time in Memphis. He made life-long friendships and connections with the likes of Zach Randolph and Mike Conley, and worked in harmony with the likes of Tony Allen. Four parts that made a wildly wonderful whole.

Those who got to experience the Core Four era know how organic, how uniquely inspiring, that time was - and how authentic the bond those four and the fan base that loves them is. They all filled their roles admirably, both on and off the floor. They did something that often gets romanticized, but rarely becomes reality. They made the city they played in better.

Marc Gasol, the longest tenured Memphian of the four due to his history in the city, was the backbone of that time in the franchise’s history. There is no “Grit and Grind” without Gasol’s beautiful basketball mind and spirit.

That is even evident in the greatest team success Gasol achieved, which came away from the Grizzlies as a member of the Toronto Raptors. Marc wound up being the missing piece to a remarkable run for Toronto to an NBA championship after he was traded there in 2019 as the Grizzlies began the rebuilding process post-Grit and Grind.

But there, in the very personal physical realization of that ultimate achievement - his championship ring - is an engraving of that same “Grit and Grind” that he built in Memphis, and carried with him every day even after he left.

For one of the greatest lessons from Marc’s masterpiece is that you can leave Memphis, but Memphis never really leaves you.

So this week, between documentaries being released and a number retirement ceremony, the franchise honors not just the mind of Marc Gasol, but his body of work. The man who made Memphis better for being part of the work such an endeavor requires. The player who helped lead the strongest sustained success the Grizzlies have ever known.

And most importantly, the spirit of what makes Memphis great. A son of the city, making the most of his gifts and creating a career and life not just worth celebrating - but worth commemorating. 

Take a bow, Big Spain. Thank you for the memories. For showing that just because you’re not from a place doesn’t mean you can’t become part of its story.

And thanks for sharing your Memphis masterpiece with all of us.

You can follow Joe Mullinax’s Grizzlies coverage on X (@JoeMullinax). Listen to or watch his podcast “Locked On Grizzlies” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube.

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