Pau Gasol on Kobe Bryant, Olympics, Watching Raptors/Marc win Title, LeBron & The Lakers

Harrison Sanford (0:00)

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Danny Green (0:22)

What's up, everybody? It's Inside the Green Room, presented to you by Jack in the Box. I'm Danny Green, my co-host, Harrison Sanford, and we've been blessed to have another former Laker, Pau Gasol. We appreciate you, man, jumping on, taking your time.

Your busy schedule, I know you have a lot going on, so appreciate you taking your time out, man.

Pau Gasol (0:40)

Absolutely, man. Thanks for having me. It's always nice to catch up and see what you got going on.

Danny Green (0:46)

For sure. Actually, it's crazy because I was thinking we had your brother on before. We haven't got a chance, and I've been your teammate first before I got him as a teammate, and we had your brother on, and he was great in telling me how much you loved gardening and all different types of stuff that he did. Do you garden by any chance?

Pau Gasol (1:04)

No, no, I don't. Okay. I don't. Marc is more into that than I am.

Never really had the time to do it.

I keep myself a little busier than Marc, so our lifestyles are a little different. And what we do with our time off is a little different. I love the concept of gardening.

Danny Green (1:28)

Well, you have time now, so with the time you have now, have you picked up any other hobbies besides, you know, the business side of basketball and phone calls? Obviously, you stay in shape and still working out.

Have you tried anything else besides, you know, the usual athletic stuff?

Pau Gasol (1:42)

Not really.

What I've been doing a lot more is writing articles, doing more interviews, kind of utilize my platforms in order to create awareness of what we're going through right now, sending out positive messages. I've been doing a lot more video content for our foundation, what we like to call, try to promote a healthy quarantine right now, and the importance of establishing a routine. So all that, that's what I've been doing a lot more of.

Danny Green (2:12)

Dope, dope, dope. So you've been writing, so you're starting to write articles.

Tell us about, obviously, tell us about the writing and also tell us about your mission with Red Cross, Rafael, and why it's important to you.

Pau Gasol (2:27)

Well, writing, we would be writing articles for Player's Tribune, and kind of how we're in this together, and how to, you know, that we might be in confinement or isolated.

But we all got to do our part, and we got to learn the lessons that this craziness is bringing to us. So that's one thing. I've been writing articles also for a paper in Spain, kind of the same concept, trying to create awareness, give my perspective, open people's eyes, encourage people to continue practice social distancing and understand the gravity of this coronavirus.

And then as far as the initiative that we kind of launched with Rafa in Spain, what we talked is like, okay, we got to do something about this. We've been so blessed to do what we have done and do with our careers and all the love that we have received through all many years. It's time to step up and lead some type of movement, a coordinated effort, and kind of encourage all sports, encourage all athletes, all our partners to raise $12 million to be able to reach 1.35 million people in Spain who are most affected by the crisis. So it's been an incredible initiative. More than 100, 200 athletes have chipped in. It's been really inspiring, and that's what we were trying to do, create a movement and kind of lead a movement here for the benefit or in benefit of the most affected by the crisis.

Danny Green (4:07)

Yeah, that's awesome, man. Harrison, you had a question?

Harrison Sanford (4:10)

For sure. So, Pau, obviously, as we go through the course of the show, we want to touch on your experience with the Lakers. Obviously, we want to talk about the championship years with you and Kobe as well as looking back at Marc's championship from last year. But before we get to that point, you're originally from Spain. There's a lot of players in the NBA who have family members all over the globe. Obviously, Danny, most of his family is based in the United States. Can you take us through what it is, how you handled this pandemic and how players are handling this pandemic, the ones with international families, the ones with folks that are not only based in America?