Gasol set to return to Raptors’ lineup

Veteran centre recovered from hamstring injury

The Toronto Raptors will be as close to full strength as they have been in ages for Wednesday’s game at Oklahoma City against the surging Thunder.

Marc Gasol, the former all-star centre who has missed the last 12 games due to a hamstring injury suffered in Detroit, said Tuesday he plans to be in the lineup, joining Pascal Siakam and Norman Powell, who returned for Sunday’s loss against San Antonio. Both Siakam and Powell also got injured against the Pistons.

Gasol is Toronto’s oldest player (he turns 35 at the end of January) and was coming off the busiest year of his career, the lone downside of winning both an NBA and international title, so he tried to see the positives of his forced rest.

“It’s always hard, you want to be out there with your guys, you want to help any way possible. It’s frustrating when you are not out there,” Gasol said.

“Hopefully, everything should be a lot better . ... Just the wear and tear, the normal body once you go through an NBA season and, obviously, you don’t have as much rest. Not just rest, but time to work on stuff you need to work on, it’s maintenance more than anything, you don’t have as much time because you’re competing and you’re trying to win and you’re ready to win games, sometimes you don’t have as much time to work on the things you need to work on,” he said.

In Gasol’s absence, his Spanish national team colleague Serge Ibaka has arguably been playing the best basketball of his career. Including the Pistons game in which Gasol played only eight minutes before exiting, Ibaka averaged 18.6 points, 10.5 rebounds and 54 per cent shooting from the field.

Will the Raptors continue to let Ibaka roll, or will Gasol reclaim his starting spot?

Head coach Nick Nurse took a day off from speaking to the media, giving lead assistant Adrian Griffin a chance to handle the daily duties.

Not surprisingly, Griffin wasn’t about to say much about the lineup decisions.

“We have a luxury of having two awesome bigs and it’ll be up to coach Nurse to decide who he rolls out there,” Griffin said. “But we’re confident with whichever one starts.”