As soon as the match that gave the Endesa League title to Barcelona was over, Pau Gasol asked the referee for the ball. Later, Mirotic and Oriola convinced him to accompany the captain in collecting the trophy. Everyone at the Palau was aware of what those moments meant for the center of Sant Boi, who had his wife and daughter in the stands. It was perhaps the last game in the ACB of Gasol, who is still waiting for the Tokyo Games next month, which will be his fifth Olympic event, the one for which he worked for two years to recover from a complicated event and that with his postponement due to the pandemic gave him the opportunity to say goodbye on the court.
This was the plan, but the great performance of Pau Gasol In the final stretch of the season, he has raised a clamor for him to extend his enormous career for at least one more year and to receive the recognition of full stands and fans, especially the youngest, eager to see it live. to a legend that they have only been able to follow in the NBA or on tours with the Spanish team. Y The clubs have not hidden their desire to accompany him on that farewell either. since they know the media impact that a last campaign of Pau Gasol would have in the ACB.
“I take each game as if it were the last,” he had said before the second game against Real Madrid. “Now it’s time to be with the family, rest and think about the future,” declared after proclaiming himself champion of the League two decades later a player who will soon be 41 years old and who has convinced the most skeptical about the opportunity of his return. Many see these words as an open door to their continuity beyond Tokyo, but one thing is to shine for a couple of months and another, to endure a season of ninety games.
In any case, Pau Gasol will make the right decision in a summer that is also going to experience another farewell to one of the outstanding members of that unrepeatable generation of 80. Except for surprise, Felipe Reyes will not remain active after a course in which he has had very little prominence and that it has ended out of the day to day of Real Madrid because of the coronavirus. The Cordovan center also deserves massive recognition, but his situation is different from that of the most successful player of those golden juniors.
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