LOS ANGELES — Two years and one week ago, Kobe Bryant received a present he will never forget.
A 7-foot Spaniard with floppy hair and a point guard's passing skills arrived on his doorstep in Los Angeles, all but gift-wrapped with a card that read, “From Memphis, with love.”
Pau Gasol, it turned out, was just what Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers needed to return to the NBA's pinnacle.
“If we could have designed a player to make us a contender, it would have been him,” Bryant said. “It was an absolutely perfect fit.”
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich was understandably less enthralled with the events of Feb. 1, 2008. At the time, he called what Memphis did — swapping an All-Star to the Lakers for a collection of what at the time were seen as spare parts — “beyond comprehension.”
Popovich's stance on the deal has since softened — “I was just trying to be a wise-ass,” he said recently — but its impact on the Western Conference power structure has not.
“It changed the whole landscape in the West,” Popovich said.
Nowhere has that seismic shift been felt more violently than in San Antonio. Months after his arrival, the Gasol-infused Lakers crushed the Spurs' hopes of a championship repeat with a five-game shellacking in the 2008 Western Conference finals.
The Lakers have been the West's top dog ever since, last season winning their first NBA championship since Shaquille O'Neal, their last All-Star big man, skipped town.
As the Spurs return to Staples Center tonight, they are still coming to grips with how to contend with Gasol at the center of a potent Lakers lineup.
Including the 2008 playoff series, the Spurs are 3-7 against L.A. since Gasol showed up, though that record could be tested tonight if Bryant (ankle) and big man Andrew Bynum (hip) can't play.
“It was a huge change for them,” Spurs guard Manu Ginobili said. “They didn't give up much, and they got an All-Star back. It changed them from a very good team into a great team.”
The Gasol trade also sparked a new arms race in the West. The Spurs' acquisition of Richard Jefferson and Antonio McDyess has its roots there, as did Phoenix's failed dalliance with O'Neal.
Memphis general manager Chris Wallace, once vilified for the deal, has since been vindicated. One of the pieces he acquired — Gasol's younger brother Marc — looks like an All-Star in the making. Another player Memphis signed with salary-cap room created by the trade — Zach Randolph — already is one.
Still, the biggest beneficiary of the deal was undoubtedly the Lakers, who only months before were on the verge of collapse.
After two first-round playoff exits — preceded by a 2004-05 season in which L.A. missed the postseason altogether — Bryant made rumblings in the summer of 2007 about wanting to be traded.
Enter Gasol. Plugged into the middle of Jackson's triangle offense, the Lakers' new forward soothed all hard feelings. In 143 games since heading to Hollywood, Gasol is averaging 18.3 points, 6.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists.
This season, nagging hamstring issues have underscored Gasol's importance. Los Angeles is 10-6 without Gasol in the lineup, 29-7 with him.
More proof came Jan. 12 at the AT&T Center. With the big Spaniard sidelined again, the Spurs earned their most lopsided victory over the Lakers in six seasons, 105-85.
Popovich frames Gasol's impact in Los Angeles as a simple math problem.
“He happens to be the most skilled big man on the planet,” Popovich said. “When you add that to the best player on the planet (Bryant), that equation changed it for everybody.”
No team felt this more than the Spurs, except maybe the Lakers.
“He made us a contender,” Bryant said. “That wasthe piece we needed to get. We've been off and running ever since.”
