In the wee hours of March 10, Manila time, I finally got to see a fraction of the whole jersey retirement ceremony.
The thing about Pau Gasol is while I recognize his team-up with Kobe Bryant as part of that awesome Los Angeles Lakers team of the late 2000s, the thing I most remember from him is his equally-brilliant international career.
I thought Gasol, Manu Ginobili, and Luis Scola were the reasons why international basketball is highly regarded now. I know most countries see the FIBA World Cup as a big-time tourney but without the US sending their main guns, it felt as if it's merely a secondary title after the NBA championship. Not only did these guys force the Americans to do better in the Olympics, but they also gave them enough reason to take the FIBA qualifiers seriously.
Also, I understand that the American players participating are far from the best. But again, we should thank or blame Gasol partially for this. Dirk Nowitzki and Arvydas Sabonis started the European invasion after failed attempts from Drazen Petrovic and Sarunas Marciulionis. Frankly, the NBA wasn't ready for the Euro game when Petro got into the league and when things were about to get good, his tragedy happened. I know Juan Antonio San Epifanio was on the verge of retirement at that point as well but an NBA cameo from him alongside the earliest entry of Sabonis as well as Oscar Schmidt could have advanced international basketball. That's why I have the guys from the late 90s to early 2000s to thank for the current NBA environment.
Gasol entered the NBA as part of the Memphis Grizzlies and he took with him a lot of his Spanish Armada teammates. Gasol had a chance to partner up with the awesome Juan Carlos Navarro and played a bunch of games against Jose Calderon, Jorge Garbajosa, Rudy Fernandez, Ricky Rubio, Victor Claver, and Raul Lopez. I would have wanted Carlos Jimenez, Felipe Reyes, and Sergio Llull to see NBA action (and there's another guy whose name escapes me), but someone has to stay for guys like Serge Ibaka and Nikola Mirotic to find their way to the NBA. And lest I forget, if it wasn't for Gasol and his Euro batchmates, a second-round player like Marc Gasol would have stayed in Europe. If you remember the Memphis trade to the Lakers, the Grizzlies were okay with getting the services of Kwame Brown because they have the other Gasol brother in the package. Marc would turn out as big, if not bigger, as what his brother could have accomplished in Memphis.
And yeah, they should totally also retire his jersey in Memphis.
I can't see the evolution of the international game without Spain's glorious World Cup win in 2006 and his twin silver medals in 2008 and 2012. Pau Gasol is the leader of those teams and if you add his two NBA championships as the second-in-command of Kobe Bryant, then you got to know how awesome his career really is.