16. Pau Gasol
Center
Pau Gasol returns to Barça 20 years on for the final part of the 2020/21 season
Pau Gasol, born on 6 July 1980, returned to Barça in February 2021, the club where he began his basketball career, to form part of the squad until June 2021. One of the best players in the world returns home to join the team until the end of the season.
First spell at Barça
Gasol played his first three games for Barça in 1998/99, but 1999/00 was his breakthrough campaign under Aito Garcia Reneses. He won two ACB leagues (1999 and 2001) and the Copa del Rey (2001) in a total of 108 domestic and European appearances.
Success in the NBA
When he was just 21 years old, Gasol was the number 3 pick in the NBA draft and started out in the biggest league in the world in 2001/02 at the Memphis Grizzlies. In 2008, he was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, where he enjoyed his most glittering era of all, winning championship rings in 2009 and 2010.
He left Los Angeles in 2014, going on to play for the Chicago Bulls (2014-16), San Antonio Spurs (2016-19) and Milwaukee Bucks (2019), his final club in the NBA. At the Bucks, he featured alongside Nikola Mirotic, who he also played with for two years at Chicago.
In total, Gasol has played 1,226 regular season and 136 playoff games in the NBA, for a total of 1,362.
Impeccable for the national team
Gasol has also been the big star of Spain’s national team throughout all of these years. Since his debut in 2001, he has won the European Championship three times (2009, 2011 and 2015), one World Championship (2006) and collected three Olympic medals (Silver: 2008 and 2012; Bronze: 2016).
Read full bio
