David Villafranca
Los Angeles (United States), March 7. With the abandonment of his number 16 by the Los Angeles Lakers, Pau Gasol added another incredible milestone on Tuesday to an extraordinary career that marked a before and after in Spanish basketball.
Gasol didn’t appear out of nowhere as basketball in Spain had had such memorable moments as silver at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and had names in capital letters like Fernando Martín, the first Spaniard to land in NBA.
But the irruption of Sant Boi, his dazzling success in the NBA and his incomparable leadership at the head of the “golden juniors” of the national team took Spanish basketball into another dimension.
“A lot of people tell me that I reap everything I sow and that’s also life,” Gasol told Efe in February, who continues to be recognized and who this year is also nominated to enter in the Basketball Hall of Fame. .
A TITAN OF THE PITCH
Born in 1980 and educated at Barcelona’s youth academy, the Catalan caused a stir in the ACB as a lad with a masterful performance in the 2001 Copa del Rey that won him earned the title of MVP with the Blaugrana team.
That year, he packed his bags to land in the NBA, which already had its radar on international talent but was still very wary of promises coming from outside North America.
Gasol was drafted at number 3 by the Atlanta Hakws but was immediately traded to the Memphis Grizzlies, who had just moved from Vancouver and traded Shareef Abdur-Rahim.
His impact on Elvis Presley Town was immediate and he not only became the leader of the group but also became the first non-American player to be named Rookie of the Year.
His six and a half years in Memphis were marked by fine individual performances but also by the poor results of a team that had not quite taken off.
Thus, Gasol was chosen in 2006 for the first of his six All-Stars but the Grizzlies lost 4-0 in the first round of the playoffs in the three times they qualified for the playoffs.
The Catalan’s life changed drastically when in February 2008 the Lakers and Grizzlies accepted his transfer in exchange for a batch of players which, curiously, included his brother Marc, still far from being the player who would also leave his mark in the NBA.
This move would unite Kobe Bryant with Pau Gasol, a venture so formidable that some voices in the league felt that the transfer should be vetoed so as not to “tamper” with the competition.
Gasol had already carved out a very important place in the NBA as part of the golden age of the modern “four” (Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Garnett…).
But in the Star City, he was finally able to compete for the title under winning ring expert, legendary trainer Phil Jackson.
The Spaniard did not need time to acclimatise: the Lakers gained momentum with his arrival and reached the NBA Finals, where they lost to their eternal “enemies”, the Boston Celtics.
The season ended on a sour note, but Bryant and Gasol returned with two more back-to-back finals that ended with arms raised: the 2009 ring against the Orlando Magic and, most importantly, the “revenge in 2010 against the Celtics with a memorable performance from the Spaniard in Game 7.
Bryant had won three titles with Shaquille O’Neal, but with Gasol he formed a wonderful alliance on and off the track, so much so that they often called each other “brother.”
The Catalan left an indelible memory in Los Angeles not only for his brilliant talent on the pitch but also for his kindness, his charity work with the community and his elegance with fans, employees and teammates.
The Spaniard left the purple and gold franchise in 2014 for the Chicago Bulls, where he played two seasons at a high level but, later, he lost importance in the teams he played (San Antonio Spurs , Milwaukee Bucks and some Portland Trail Blazers with the who didn’t debut).
One of the biggest moments of his career came at the 2015 All-Star when he shared the starting field with his brother Marc, already a Grizzlies idol at the time.
Gasol, injured in the foot when the coronavirus pandemic broke out, retired from professional basketball in 2021 playing for Barcelona.
SELECTION EMBLEM
Gasol’s successes in the NBA and ACB are at least on par with his historic accomplishments in charge of the Spanish team.
Since the memorable gold of the “Lisbon Juniors” in 1999, where they beat the United States, Gasol was the banner of a national team with which they won the 2006 World Cup, Eurobasket 2009, 2011 and 2015 as well as three Olympic medals (silver in Beijing 2008 and London 2012 and bronze in Rio 2016).
Juan Carlos Navarro, Felipe Reyes, José Calderón, Jorge Garbajosa, Rudy Fernández, Ricky Rubio, Sergio Rodríguez, Carlos Jiménez and his own brother Marc Gasol are among those who have accompanied him in these two golden decades and for whom there remained than the splinter. dunk of never having beaten the United States as an adult.
Gasol’s example and his undying legacy now continue to inspire new generations of Spanish basketball, so much so that his mark can be traced back to the recent 2019 World Cup and Eurobasket gold medals. 2022.EFE
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