Should the Timberwolves sign Pau Gasol?

There are a host of free agents that the Timberwolves are rumored to be interested in signing, but Pau Gasol is the biggest name who has, at least on some level, apparently reciprocated the interest.

Gasol is about to turn 36, and has been in the league for 15 seasons. He averaged the second-least points per game in his career in 2015-16, and many fans seem to be guarded against the Timberwolves signing a big man who is on the downside of his career.

But the downside of Gasol’s career is still much better than the prime of so many other NBA careers. The advanced stats and rate-based statistics bear that out, as well.

Gasol was 35th in the NBA in win shares, according to Basketball-Reference.com. He was sixth among centers in ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus statistic, and 22nd overall.

He also finished the season with a career-high block rate of 4.7 percent, and his highest steal rate since 2008-09 with the Lakers — and this was in his first Bulls season without Tom Thibodeau as his coach.

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Offensively, Gasol shot the highest number of three-pointers in his career, making a respectable 34.8 percent of his attempts. His field goal percentage dipped and his overall offensive efficiency took a hit, but this was at least in part due to the Bulls’ offensive dysfunction as a team, as well as the players around Gasol.

The Spaniard did attempt an alarming amount of his shots from beyond 16 feet but inside the arc — 32.7 percent of his attempts were from that range. He made a solid 45.2 percent of those attempts, but the spike in mid-range shots and the dip in attempts in the paint and in the post are a peek into the shift in Gasol’s game as he ages.

The most encouraging number from Gasol’s 2015-16 campaign, however, is his career-high assist rate of 21.7 percent. Pairing a premier passer with Karl-Anthony Towns or Gorgui Dieng would be ideal, and don’t forget that all three big men can also score in the post and hit jumpers from the outside.

The offensive options would be endless for Thibodeau, and he would have the ability to mix-and-match the three players in whatever fashion he so chooses.

The biggest downside here is that the best, most-effective position for all three of Towns, Dieng, and Gasol, is the center spot. Almost across the board, however, one of them will have to be on the court as the power forward. We saw the Towns-Dieng pairing work in long stretches last season, so it definitely can work, but it’s probably not optimal.