“And now that?”
The video progresses on the screen of the Texas cinema, in Gràcia. Now we are seeing it in large format, although it has previously circulated on social networks, that has been the case for a couple of days.
-Marc, what are you going to do now? -they ask him in English, Spanish and Catalan.
And the basketball icon, who does not open his mouth in the video, tells us now: basketball is over.
He himself leads the event, as he has previously led Girona Bàsquet, a club of which he was founder (2014) and president, owner and player. On stage, Marc Gasol performs with mastery and grace.
And he tells us his stories, his desires as a child, his relationship with his brother Pau, his journey in Barça, in the national team, Girona, the NBA, Girona again.
-It has been an obsession with playing with the best, looking at their faces and saying: ‘And now, what?’ -she says to herself.
He declares himself son, brother, husband, father and friend of many.
“It is time to give everything that I have been taught,” he says, in the company of Magí Garcia and Manel Vidal, thinkers of the event and the farewell ceremony.
Here are his parents, Agustí and Marisa.
And his wife, Cristina Blesa, and their children.
And his younger brother, Adrià.
“We had to do something and that’s why we are here,” says Marc Gasol, who is now 39 years old, has an NBA ring, two world titles and two other European titles, and who this year has no longer dressed in shorts: It has been a long and hard process and there is a part of me that does not agree with this outcome, but it is what it is. I will miss it, but the time is right.
(He will continue as executive president of Girona Bàsquet; his priority objective is to keep the club in the top flight).
-You’re still in shape though, right? -they tell him.
-It doesn’t play anymore. Although the fact that I have had proposals to continue has made everything difficult for me. That made me deceive myself, but my bet must be to invest time in my family and in myself.
-And what will you do?
-I want to give myself time. I want to be a better son, friend, father and husband. When you are a basketball player, you are never 100% in those aspects, and I want to do it.
So here two paths cross: while Ricky Rubio (33), the basketball player who returns to training with Barça (waiting for a decision on his future), lights up, the presence of Marc Gasol, his generational teammate, goes out. costumes and titles.
(Juan Carlos Navarro, general director of Barça basketball, has been at all the events: he had witnessed Ricky Rubio’s return and is now witnessing Marc Gasol’s farewell).
-Promoting to the ACB with Girona (2022), with all the work that involved and all the weeks-long bureaucratic procedures, I think that has been the happiest moment of my career.
-And which teammates would you put in two starting fives?
-In FIBA, I would base Ricky. Of three, to San Emeterio, who fills the empty spaces. There are Juanqui (Navarro) and my brother, and me. And in the NBA, Mike Conley, Tony Allen, Kawhi Leonard, Randolph and, out of five, myself.
-What would you say to the new generations? -asks Jordi de Mas, creator of the @demas6basket platform.
-Don’t let yourself be influenced by what they are told when they are starting out.
(And the subconscious takes us to his beginnings in the ACB League, when he made his way at Barça despite the skepticism of Dusko Ivanovic, his coach at the time).
-And that part of you that does not agree with your decision, what is it?
-There is an instinct that all players have to want to fight against that decision, but it has been carefully considered. When you are of an advanced age and the pain is daily and it is difficult to cope with preparing for matches and training, you see that you are coming to an end. Last season it was difficult for me to advance, and in the end I tried to enjoy every court I visited. And in the last game in Girona against Vitoria I thought it was the last, although later in the summer, with the rest, I thought about continuing again. But it couldn’t be, and in November we assumed it.
