Either Pau Gasol really enjoys being in the States for Thanksgiving or he’s hopeful the NBA lockout will end. Whatever the case, Gasol is back in L.A. and is preparing as if the season will begin sometime soon.
When last we heard from Pau he was basking in the afterglow of Spain’s second consecutive trip to the summit of European hoops. Gasol and his brother decided to stick around in Barcelona to train with their former club and there was even talk of Pau playing professionally in Spain.
Now that the labor talks have resumed there is a slight glimmer of hope that we’ll have NBA hoops come Christmas. But we’ve all learned not to put too many eggs in that basket.
If we do get a season soon it bodes well that Pau has spent the extended offseason getting the taste of bitter defeat out of his mouth. If anybody needed to bounce back strong it is Gasol.
But since this is Thanksgiving we’re just going to concentrate on the positive.
We saw how much playing during the summer did for Lamar Odom last year. While the time frame is much different you’d like to think there would be similar results for Pau. Again, keeping it positive we’re going to take Pau’s return as a good sign. If nothing else it at least shows that his head is in the game, even if there is no game to speak of at the moment.