Pau Gasol - Parenthood, Pro Ball, and the 'Pau'wer of Helping Others

Lisa Borders (0:01)

Hello there, this is Lisa Borders, and on this podcast, I'll connect with people from all walks of life. We'll talk about overcoming adversity, transmuting the shadow, and moments of illumination. We'll explore what it means to fulfill our potential while maintaining our most authentic selves. And we'll reflect on the lessons we're learning all along the way. If you feel inspired by what you hear, subscribe wherever you're listening. Leave a five-star review, share it with a friend, and join the community at lisaborders.us. Thank you for joining me. And this is Enlightened.

Hey, Pau Gasol, it's so great to be here with you. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast.

Pau Gasol (0:53)

Thank you, Lisa. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to have the conversation. I look forward to it.

Lisa Borders (0:58)

Absolutely. This is going to be fabulous. And you and I talk a lot. We met through a friend, a professor at Duke University, but we've had the opportunity to really develop our own relationship. So I am so grateful to be able to talk with you a little bit more, not only about your career, but about your family and about your life, and perhaps your Enlightened experience on the podcast. So can we start with where you're from Spain? So you're from Europe and you have played and play in the WNBA, my goodness, the NBA. But let's start with family and how this all started. And I recently read that both your parents played basketball. Is that where you developed the interest? Is that where you developed the love for the game?

Pau Gasol (1:46)

Yes. So both of my parents played. I didn't see my mom play because she basically had to give it up after she had me. And she was also finishing up her medical school studies. So she had me on her last year of her career as a medical student. But I saw pictures. I saw pictures of my mom on her basketball team. And then when I was little, when I was a little kid, we would go and watch my dad play on the weekends. So he was playing the veterans team in the club. And we would go and watch him play. And so, look, my dad plays. And he was, as a kid, as a boy, as your figure, that's who you want to become. That's who you look up to. And how I started and how I started picking up a basketball and developed a huge interest for basketball. And then later on, I found out that I was enjoying it. I wasn't really good at it at first, but I just had fun. I just had fun and it's important that my parents play because they're always been a reference and they provided so much in my life to be the person that I am today.

Lisa Borders (2:50)

That's fantastic. Do you know what made your dad want to play? Obviously, he was 6'3, so he was a tall man. He was gifted with the talent, but also the height. And your mom was tall, but do you know, tell us how they met and were they playing basketball in school? How did that all happen?

Pau Gasol (3:07)

I think they met through common friends. They were the tall person on their groups. And they're like, hey, I have a tall friend that you might want to meet. Their common friends kind of introduced them. I guess being tall sometimes can be challenging in certain ways.

And back in the day, the generations before us were not as tall as the ones now. So they were pretty tall at the time, and they just got introduced just by being the tall people in their group or the tall person in their group. And they connected, they started hanging out and love happened.

Lisa Borders (3:38)

Oh, that's so sweet. I love that story. I love that story. So you played in Spain. How did you decide you would like to come to the US or that you'd like to try out for the NBA? We all saw you get drafted in 2001 First round, third pick. And so you became an NBA professional in 2002 officially. But how did you make that decision and what drove your decision?

Pau Gasol (4:07)

Playing in the NBA was a dream for me. I remember growing up as a kid and having all these superstars hung up on my wall with all kinds of posters of players that I ended up playing against for the most part. And that was what I dreamt as a kid. I wanted to be a professional basketball player. And the NBA was like a different universe, was like somewhere that not many people could play. Definitely there was only one Spaniard before me that played in the NBA. So it was something quite seemed like unattainable at the time. Much more uncommon than it is today for many international kids that play basketball that probably see it more as a viable and realistic option. For me, it was like, wow, this is like a different galaxy that one day I think that I can play. I could play with Michael Jordan. I could play with those incredible players. And I remember having dreams. And I have professors at school, early high school where they say, yeah, you used to say that you would play one day in the NBA. I used to have certain confidence swagger at the time that I would share it.