NBA
Marc Gasol announces his retirement
The Spanish center announced that he is putting an end to his career that spanned 20 years and brought an NBA ring and four gold medals with Spain’s national team.
Marc Gasol played his last game on 24 May 2023. The center and president of Bàsquet Girona started the ACB season without clarifying his future plans, but he did make one thing clear in mid-August: “What is certain is that I will not start the season”. After the first four months of the campaign, and still without an appearance on-court, Marc’s decision was not totally unexpected. In last week’s press conference, in which he announced the dismissal of head coach Salva Camps, he also vowed to reveal details of his own future by the end of this month. Today, he summoned at Cines Texas in Barcelona to break the news.
Impressive honors list
Marc confirmed what was almost an open secret, bringing to an end a career that spanned two decades and in which he won the ACB league title with Barça, a FIBA EuroCup with Akasvayu Girona and the ring with the Raptors in 2019. His career with Spain’s national team was nothing short of meteoric - it brought four gold medals (two world championships in 2006 and 2019) and two Europeans (2009 and 2011), three silvers (the 2008 and 2008 Olympics and the European 2007) and two bronzes, one in Rio 2016 and the other in the 2017 European Championship.
After spending his formative years at Bàsquet Cornellà, the younger of the Gasol brothers left Spain, taking his entire family with him to Memphis when his brother Pau landed in the NBA. He stood out at the Lausanne Collegiate School, where he averaged 27.5 points, 12.5 rebounds and 5.7 blocks. Although he had offers from several universities, Marc decided to return to Spain to play for Barça. He made his ACB debut against Estudiantes in October 2003, but did not have the kind of prominence he had hoped for during the two seasons he spent at the Palau.
He took the first major step forward in his career in the summer of 2006 when he was called up by Spain as a replacement for the injured Fran Vázquez at the FIBA World Championship. In Saitama he, and a team which featured his older brother, won the gold medal. His overall game was improving with every week that passed and that was helped by a move to CB Girona. In his second season at Akasvayu he was named MVP on eleven different days, surpassing the record held by Arvydas Sabonis. He was also the best player of the regular phase.
A move to the best basketball league in the world
In the summer of 2008, after winning the Olympic silver in Beijing, he made the leap to the NBA. A year earlier, he had been drafted by the Lakers (48th place), but his rights changed from Los Angeles to the Grizzlies in his brother’s trade in February 2008. Therefore, he joined the Grizzlies where he spent nine and a half seasons - in the process, earning the title as the Best Defender in the NBA (2013) and making three All-Star games appearances (including the historic leap between brothers in 2015).
In February 2019, the Grizzlies traded him to the Raptors. There, together with Serge Ibaka and with Sergio Scariolo as assistant coach, he won the ring, a few months before winning his second world gold with the national team. In November 2020 he signed for Los Angeles Lakers, his last team in the NBA, before returning to Spain to close the circle. President of Bàsquet Girona, a team which was born from the ashes of the former Akasvayu, Marc decided to make the jump from the NBA to the LEB to fight for promotion, something which the team achieved in his first season.