NBA: LA Lakers announce they will retire Pau Gasol’s No. 16 jersey
Pau Gasol will be the latest Laker legend to receive the honor of finding his jersey high above the Crypto.com Arena.
Los Angeles announced Wednesday they will ‘raise Pau Gasol’s jersey into the rafters,’ when his first team, the Memphis Grizzlies, come to town on March 7.
Gasol, two-time NBA champion with LA, will soon find his jersey resting in Lakers heaven alongside those of the late Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and Magic Johnson among others.
Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol formed a bond which went beyond their time in the NBA together
In total, LA have retired the jerseys of 10 players since the franchise began in 1947. Gasol will now be the eleventh.
The Spaniard’s No. 16 will fittingly be honored against the Grizzlies. He spent eight seasons in Tennessee before the third overall pick was traded to Tinseltown.
Throughout his 18-year NBA career, Gasol played for the aforementioned Grizzlies and Lakers alongside the Chicago Bulls, San Antonio Spurs and Milwaukee Bucks.
Gasol won a gold medal with the Spanish national team at the 2006 FIBA World Championship
His lengthy resume, excluding the two titles, included six All-Star appearances and four All-NBA honors.
Gasol will now become the eleventh and most recent since Kobe Bryant had the number eight and 24 jerseys hung in 2017.
The late, great Bryant foresaw Gasol’s entry into rarest of Lakers’ honors before his passing on January 26, 2020.
While at the 2018 iteration of the Oscars, Bryant was emphatic about where Gasol truly belonged within the Lakers franchise.
‘He will have his number in the rafters next to mine. The reality is I don’t win those championships without Pau,’ he said at the time.
‘The city of LA doesn’t have those two championships without Pau Gasol. We know that, everybody knows that.’
Gasol was a formidable sidekick to Bryant as the Lakers went back-to-back in 2010 and 2011
Gasol has been an immense support to the Bryant family since Kobe’s tragic passing in 2020
