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The Los Angeles Lakers have enormous pressure to improve this summer. Their most desirable asset, young center Andrew Bynum, will not be traded unless the Los Angeles Lakers can get enough talent back to be immediate contenders.

That's a pretty tall order. Considering Kwame Brown's struggles to find consistency and Chris Mihm's year long ankle injury . . . the Los Angeles Lakers cannot afford to move Andrew Bynum without getting size in return.

In other words, Andrew Bynum cannot be traded for a guard or a wing player unless the Los Angeles Lakers have found some magic solution to fill the void at center.

Complicating matters, Andrew Bynum only makes a couple of million. The only significant last year contract LA has on the books is Kwame Brown's. Unless LA can pressure a team into taking Vladimir Radmanovic, Kwame Brown would probably have to be the salary ballast to make a Andrew Bynum deal go through.

Even if Mihm is re-signed and proves ready to play, the Los Angeles Lakers would be mighty thin with just Ronny Turiaf capable of backing him up.

Recently the idea of Jermaine O'Neal was discussed at length as a reasonable, albeit expensive possibility.

Another feasible target in return for Andrew Bynum is Memphis Grizzlies' Forward/Center Pau Gasol.

After missing the first 20+ games of this last season, Pau Gasol found the Grizzlies in a major hole. Over the last season or two, the team had let go of nearly every veteran (Eddie Jones, Lorenzen Wright, Shane Battier, Bobby Jackson, Earl Watson, Jake Tsakalidis, James Posey and Jason Williams) in favor of young talent like Rudy Gay, Hakim Warrick and Kyle Lowry.

Gasol, who had broken his foot leading the Spanish National Team to the FIBA World Championship, found himself in a no-win situation: The Grizzlies didn't have the talent to win, they had fired their coach, their owner was trying to sell the team and Jerry West (President of Basketball Operations) was expected to step down after the season.

Gasol responded by asking for a trade. The Grizzlies didn't like the offers made (specifically from the Chicago Bulls who refused to give up a combination of Luol Deng and Ben Gordon . . . among other packages) and kept Gasol the remainder of the season.

As the year ended, Gasol reiterated his desire to leave to the media, even if the team managed to draft a top two prospect like Greg Oden or Kevin Durant.

It's not clear if he will be traded and if so for what . . . but if the Los Angeles Lakers are shopping Andrew Bynum they would probably be one of the top suitors.

A combination of Andrew Bynum and Kwame Brown is enough to match the salaries. It would be a lot trickier without Kwame Brown. The Los Angeles Lakers won't trade both Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum for Gasol. That means it would probably take a package built around Andrew Bynum and Vladimir Radmanovic (and filler) which would probably be far less appealing to the Grizzlies.

If trade discussions did get serious between the two teams, other players could be involved along with draft picks . . . but for the sake of argument let's assume LA and Memphis make a simple Andrew Bynum/Kwame Brown for Gasol swap.

The Laker roster would look like the following going into the summer (assuming they re-sign Luke Walton and Chris Mihm, neither necessarily a given).

PG: Jordan Farmar/Sasha Vujacic
SG: Kobe Bryant/Mo Evans
SF: Luke Walton/Vladimir Radmanovic
PF: Lamar Odom/Ronny Turiaf/Brian Cook
C: Pau Gasol/Chris Mihm

Assuming Smush Parker (a lock), Aaron McKie and Shammond Williams do not return the Los Angeles Lakers would have 11 players under contract. They'd have their Mid-Level Exception (MLE at ~$5.5-6 million), the 19th pick in the draft along with two second-rounders.

The Los Angeles Lakers would have to find away to either trade their 19th pick along with the little filler they have left for a point guard or luck into a starter with their MLE . . . a very difficult task.

Of course LA could then choose to blow up the team even further, turning Odom around for a guard and perhaps another forward/center . . . but that's out of the scope of this article.

How well would such a Laker squad fare?

What Gasol brings is a true low post option. There were only five players last year to average at least 20 points and 10 rebounds while shooting over 50% from the field (Chris Bosh, Carlos Boozer, Amare Stoudemire, Tim Duncan and Gasol).

[Technically Gasol averaged 9.8 rpg but then Bosh only shot 49.6% . . . the decimals are rounded for the sake of this article.]

Gasol put up 20.8 ppg on 53.9% shooting from the field. He also blocked 2.1 shots per game while committing just 2.3 pfpg.

One knock on Gasol is that he's not a rugged position defender. He is a solid weak-side shot blocker and helped anchor the 2005/6 Grizzlies team that held opponents to a league best 88.5 ppg. LA would need additional muscle to help defend against the elite big men in the NBA.

Defensive minded/offensively challenged bigs are a lot easier to find than a low post big putting up Gasol-like numbers.

A legitimate worry is that Gasol's playoff record is 0-12 (three straight sweeps).

Though his supporting cast never included a second star, he deserves a share of that blame.

Gasol and the Grizzlies may have been post-season flops, but winning 50+ games a year in the Western Conference with a questionably talented roster was impressive.

Of course the Los Angeles Lakers have Kobe Bryant along with Odom to help on that front . . . and don't forget Head Coach Phil Jackson.

Offseason moves are rarely simple but if LA had the chance to choose between Gasol and Jermaine O'Neal from the Pacers, Gasol is the better option.

Though O'Neal is considered more of a star, how much of that is based on past performance?

O'Neal shot just 43.6% from the field this season. His best performance in the past four years was in 2005/6 when he shot 47.2%.

In the 2005 playoffs though, O'Neal hit at an abysmal 36.5% clip through 13 playoff games.

For a guard that's terrible but a power forward/center?

Perhaps in the triangle offense O'Neal would stop taking jump shots and fade-aways.

Gasol already puts up the numbers you want from a big man. The triangle offense needs someone to score in the low post. The team has suffered for easy baskets and an inside/outside game. Gasol doesn't have to change up his game to provide what the Los Angeles Lakers desperately need.

Some have called Gasol "soft" but that's often a label unfairly assigned because they're European. O'Neal's face up game is a lot softer than Gasol's commitment to the low post. Gasol can face up and shoot from outside as well but it's nice that his bread and butter game is already in the paint.

A serious factor to consider is O'Neal's gigantic contract with $64 million remaining over the next three seasons. Gasol is a much more reasonably priced $63 million spread out over four. That's $21.4 million per year for O'Neal and $15.8 million for Gasol.

With luxury taxes a major consideration, O'Neal would likely cost on average $11.2 million more per season.

Currently O'Neal is coming off of offseason knee surgery. He's missed an entire season (82 games) spread out over the last three years. (To be fair, Gasol did miss 51 games over the same stretch).

Gasol is also two years younger, a better passer and can calculate pi to the 20th digit (that last one is probably not true).

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