Gasol will consider many factors in deciding whether to stay, but the most important, he said, will be the level of his team’s commitment to winning.

“That’s going to be huge for me,” he said. “Because you’ve got to go to work every day and feel good about it, knowing that everyone is seeing the big picture, which is having the biggest chance to win a championship.”

He added: “I’d rather wait and see how we all feel after the season. Then you make a decision for the next four or five years of your life, and you’re feeling good about it and knowing that’s what you want to do.”

The trifling cost of waiting is having to listen to speculation and field questions about his intentions, a burden that is likely to intensify as the season carries on. It is in many ways a byproduct of doing business in the N.B.A. Shorter contracts and new free-agent rules have resulted in more stars’ looking around, a process that sometimes takes on a life — and a name — of its own: the Decision, Dwightmare I and II, Melo-drama, the Summer of Love.

“Speculation really is not a concern of mine,” said Chris Wallace, the Grizzlies’ general manager. “The whole free-agency period is a long way off, but what we’ve obviously made known to him is, the first priority of the organization is to keep him. He’s extremely important to us, and we’re going to get him re-signed one way or another, regardless of when that occurs.”

Wallace’s confidence is rooted in two factors. The Grizzlies have been successful in re-signing key players — Conley, Rudy Gay (now with Sacramento), Randolph and Tony Allen — even if it meant paying above-market rates. And Gasol has strong ties to the city, which he acknowledges would make it hard to leave.

Gasol arrived in the Memphis area as a 16-year-old when his older brother, Pau, started his N.B.A. career in the city, and he played two years of high school basketball there before going to Spain to begin his own professional career.