There are two great honors in the NBA once you retire. The first, the largest and most global, is to enter the Hall of Fame of the North American League; the second, to see your bib number hanging forever at the top of the flag of the team that you have defended in one and a thousand battles. And Pau Gasol (Barcelona, ​​1980) already has one of them since March 7 after contemplating with pride and emotion how the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the biggest franchises in the NBA, have raised their number 16 to the top of the Crypto .com Arena (the Staples Center). No one else in history will be able to sport it in the purple and gold team. The Hall of Fame will have to wait a little longer, but it will fall: according to Basketball Reference, the Spaniard has a 93.3% chance of integrating it due to his achievements during the 18 seasons that he played in the North American tournament.
Gasol, the best Spanish player of all time, landed in the Lakers in February 2008 from the Memphis Grizzlies, the franchise that obtained his rights in the 2001 draft after being chosen by the Atlanta Hawks. And his time in California was fundamental. Together with Kobe Bryant, Pau increased the number of rings in the organization by two, won consecutively in 2009 and 2010, becoming the first Spaniard to win an NBA title.
The one from Sant Boi played 429 of his 1,226 total games in the NBA with the Lakers. He averaged 17.7 points, 9.9 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.4 blocks. He got the best rebounding game out of him, with 22, there in 2010 against the Milwaukee Bucks. In addition, of the ten triple-doubles with which he concluded his career in the North American League, five came wearing the purple and gold. Three of his All Star Game appearances were as a laker and he won four of his seven player of the week awards and one of four player of the month awards. He made the All-NBA Second Team once and the All-NBA Third Team twice on the team that now has its 16th on top of the world alongside Magic’s 32nd, Shaquille O’Neal’s 34th, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar… and the 8th and 24th of his brother, of his beloved Kobe Bryant.
