2023-08-13 04:33:25
The story that began to be written on June 27, 2001 at Madison Square Garden in New York had the best possible climax this morning in Springfield (Massachussets, USA). Twenty-two years after he began his adventure in the NBA by being chosen number 3 in the ‘draft’, Pau Gasol Sáez has entered the basketball Olympus: the Hall of Fame, which brings together great legends of the sport of the basket. The eldest of the Gasols became the first Spanish player to enter the Hall of Fame. Until this morning only two coaches, now deceased, had had that honor: Antonio Díaz Miguel (1997) and Pedro Ferrándiz (2007).
Five months after the Lakers retired his number 16 in an emotional ceremony, Gasol lived a no less exciting moment, accompanied by two legends such as Toni Kukoc and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who were his presenters. The ceremony also recognized, among others, two other great European stars: the German Dirk Nowitzki and the French Tony Parker, Gasol’s rivals in a thousand games both in the NBA and in international competitions. Dwayne Wade, legend of the Miami Heat, and Gregg Popovich, the mythical coach of the San Antonio Spurs, also entered the Hall of Fame.
18 seasons in the NBA
Gasol’s footprint in the NBA and in international basketball goes beyond his extraordinary numbers. His legacy speaks of a young man from Sant Boi de Llobregat who At the age of 21, he dared to take the big leap to face the giants of the NBA after a burst, as spectacular as it was brief, at Barça. Gasol faced off against those giants over the course of 18 seasons in which he earned unanimous praise and admiration from teammates and rivals for both his play and his faultless conduct.
His career took off with the Memphis Grizzlies, where he was drafted rookie of the year in 2002, and was catapulted with his transfer to the Lakers in 2008. He spent six seasons in the mythical Californian team, as the best support year of his ‘brother’ Kobe Bryant in the champion rings in 2009 and 2010. Between 2014 and 2016 he remained at the top with the Chicago Bulls, where he got the best score of his career: 46 points against the Milwaukee Bucks. In San Antonio, with Popovich on the bench, he experienced the next stage (three years) of a career that injuries began to put out. In Milwaukee he only played three games in 2019 and in Portland, his last team in the NBAdid not even debut that same year.
End point at Barça and at the Tokyo Olympics
Gone were, apart from those two rings and the rookie of the year, six All-Stars (2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2015 and 2016) and two presences in the second best team of the season (2010 and 2015). His departure from the NBA did not mean the end point in his sports career. After more than a year without playing, he returned to the starting point.
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He signed a contract with Barça from February 2021 until the end of the season. He won the ACB League and played in the Tokyo Olympics that summer as the closing of a huge international career with memorable successes with the Spanish national team such as the 2006 World Cup and the 2009, 2011 and 2016 European Championships, apart from two silver medals (Beijing 2008 and London 2012) and an Olympic bronze.
On October 5, 2021, in an act at the Liceu, he announced his retirement from professional basketball.
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