George Mikan, surely the first great dominator of the NBA.
Jamaal Wilkes, key player in three Lakers rings between 1980 and 1985.
James Worthy, the element without which the ‘Showtime’ would not have been the same.
Gail Goodrich, top scorer for the Californians in four seasons and engine of that team that won 33 games in a row in the 71-72 campaign.
Shaquille O’Neal, maybe the greatest force of nature in history of this sport.
Elgin Baylor, a guy capable of scoring 61 points to the Celtics in the 1962 final… without triples, of course.
Wilt Chamberlain, co-star of one of the great rivalries of all time and someone capable of leaving almost routinely at 20 rebounds per game.
Kobe Bryant, his 5 rings and the eternal legacy of his ‘Mamba Mentality’, which forged one of the greatest ‘killers’ of all time.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, someone whose impact managed to change the rules of the game, the figure that LeBron James has just surpassed as the all-time leading scorer and a human being capable of making a better society
Magic Johnson, and I stand up. The guy that got an entire generation hooked on this game.
Jerry West, directly the figure that appears in the logo of the NBA
And Pau Gassol.
In the early hours of next Tuesday to Wednesday, that skinny boy from Sant Boi who wanted to study medicine to emulate his mother will become the twelfth player for the Los Angeles Lakers, probably the best club in the history of basketball, with his jersey removed and hanging from the roof of the Crypto.com Arena. Of course it will be first non-American in being there
A good part of the memories of several generations hang from that ceiling. There’s also Chick Hearn, the team’s storied storyteller who gave voice to its successes and failures during four decades of unstoppable social change. There is Kobe Bryant twice, with 8 and 24, because he had to be different. And there will be LeBron James, of course. But before him, Pau Gasol will arrive.
I don’t know if we are fully aware of what it means that, starting this week, that shirt is hanging there. Of what that represents for Spanish sport, well I don’t think there is a greater individual recognition in the basketball universe than having your number retired by the Lakers and your name in full view in that Los Angeles temple of luxury and spectacle. Some will tell me that the ‘Hall of Fame’, but that is also just around the corner.
Because despite that “1,2,3 Olé!” that earned him the respect of Kevin Garnett and half the league, and that listeners listen to every Sunday taking fallar in his head because it’s part of our golden book, because despite growing up in Memphis or converting, and I don’t think this is chauvinism, in the greatest dominator that has ever existed in FIBA basketball, with nothing to envy the Sabonis, Petrovic or Nowitzki, that the Lakers take away your shirt is something practically unparalleled. For the glamorous, okay. But above all, because of the gigantic meaning that an event like that has.
Pau Gasol played three finals with the Lakers. It was the key that made Kobe win two rings again in a row and leave behind the huge, heavy shadow that he couldn’t do it without Shaq. This was clearly recognized by Bryant himself, a proud guy where there are. And Phil Jackson, master of the benches and mentality and perfectly aware that only with Kobe’s excellence he would not have won his tenth or eleventh title from him. That is Pau Gasol, the protagonist of a 2015 All-Star Game early jumper alongside his brother Marc. And on top of that, at Madison Square Garden, in that already iconic image for world sports. Luckily for many you were ‘Gasoft’. I don’t even want to think that you would have been ‘Gahard’, Pau.
The Lakers retire Pau Gasol’s jersey for everything he gave them on the court, but also for what it means off it. For impeccable values, like Marc’s. Congratulations to that family. To Marisa and Agustí, about whom I always have the joke that they could have cryogenized their gametes for whatever might happen. In case in the future we need a few centers or, above all, a few good people.
Pau, who is also a FIBA Global Ambassador, as he is of UNICEF or a member of the IOC Athletes Commission, already a legend. What is going to happen on Tuesday is nothing more than a gesture. But its symbolism is such that it should make us think about what was achieved by that boy from Sant Boi who wanted to be a doctor. Many of us have indirectly changed our lives. It is so, and I think it is impossible not to feel enormously proud of him.
So, contrary to the popular saying, dear Pau, thanks for not ‘having studied’. I’m sure you would have made a good doctor. But what you have achieved makes you one of the most famous Spaniards in history. So, with all the letters. Phil Jackson already said of you that you were a renaissance man, observing your holistic training and your concerns beyond the court. Enjoy your moment, and thank you for so many memories. Even though, in this society where everything happens so fast and oblivion is just around the corner, sometimes we don’t realize or appreciate enough what what you’ve done means.
But the truth is that you are already part of Olympus.
