Pau: "It wasn't about confidence. I collapsed"

[desertlakerfan]

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/05/20/pau-gasol-%E2%80%9Cit-wasnt-about-confidence-i-collapsed-%E2%80%9D

In an interview with Spanish sports site Marca (translated by Hoopshype) Gasol said <that> all the speculation bothered him, but he was just exhausted.

“It wasn’t about self-esteem. It wasn’t about confidence. I collapsed. I was exhausted a little bit too. It hasn’t been a lack of confidence….

Let me start out by saying I love what Phil brought to this team and will always consider him the greatest coach of all time, but even the great ones can make mistakes, and the way he ran Pau into the ground this season might of been a key determining factor in what cost us another 3 peat.

How many times this season did you find yourself thinking, "Why is Pau still in this 20 point blowout game with less than 5 minutes to go?". I remember it happening quite often, mainly hoping that Pau wouldn't injure himself in "garbage time", and questioning Phil's sanity when we had Smith and Caracter at the end of the bench.

Pau was 7th in the league in overall minutes at 3037, and he was the ONLY player over 26 in the top 12 in minutes played(Ray Allen is 13th at 2890 minutes). For whatever reason PJ played Pau like he was a young buck, but as we all saw as the playoffs rolled around it finally took its toll on him.

I will say in PJ's defense that he was forced to play Pau heavy minutes early due to Bynums long recovery time, but after those first 20 games he continued to push Pau too hard for the rest of the year. I'm sure looking back on things PJ would of changed how he handled Gasol's minutes for the second half of the season.

[shobe_81]

Then Pau needs to take the summer off rather than play for his Spanish team.

[desertlakerfan]

Then Pau needs to take the summer off rather than play for his Spanish team.

I agree. Hopefully the comment of possibly playing with them was just talk of wanting to get that series loss out of his head since it was taken so close to the sweep. Pau needs to be rested coming into next season, but more importantly he needs to not play so many regular season minutes especially if a large portion are at the center position.

[BEazy]

Pau is stupid if you "collapsed" like he said he did, then just practice you dumbass! No Spanish team for this guy. I hope Buss denies him to run with the Spanish team.

[Jajwanda]

I hope we bench him so that at least he's in his most effective role and we run our more effective lineup.

[slifersd]

Call be cynical but to me, Gasol is full of crap. He took the entire summer off last year, one would think that would help him recover from the wear and tear of the past three post season runs and get him in better shape than ever. But guess what, he came into the season great and then started complaining about his minutes about three weeks into the season. His play level also dropped off dramatically since then.

I am not going to argue that Phil probably played him too many minutes and Mitch probably should have done better than signing and keeping Ratliff to back up our bigs, but what the hell did Gasol do last summer to be so out of shape? Gasol is the one who ALLOWED himself to be out of shape and play soft to compensate for his lack of conditioning, not the coach. If he can't stay in shape while resting in the summer, then he needs to be forced to play basketball. I for one am in favor of him playing for Spain in the summer because Gasol is the type of player that doesn't have any self restraint and therefore needs to be pushed to stay in tip top shape.

[BEazy]

Call be cynical but to me, Gasol is full of crap. He took the entire summer off last year, one would think that would help him recover from the wear and tear of the past three post season runs and get him in better shape than ever. But guess what, he came into the season great and then started complaining about his minutes about three weeks into the season. His play level also dropped off dramatically since then.

I am not going to argue that Phil probably played him too many minutes and Mitch probably should have done better than signing and keeping Ratliff to back up our bigs, but what the hell did Gasol do last summer to be so out of shape? Gasol is the one who ALLOWED himself to be out of shape and play soft to compensate for his lack of conditioning, not the coach. If he can't stay in shape while resting in the summer, then he needs to be forced to play basketball. I for one am in favor of him playing for Spain in the summer because Gasol is the type of player that doesn't have any self restraint and therefore needs to be pushed to stay in tip top shape.

+1

[DEEP3CL]

Great thread desertlakerfan, also props to slifersd on an excellent post too. Agree with all that was mentioned. This why my only gripe with Phil is he didn't and never did during most of his career develop young talent. It's sad that rookies basically throw away a year under him. No way in hell a talent like Caracter shouldn't have played . When Ratliff went down DC should have been next in line to get those minutes rookie or not.

As far Pau, I never bought into the who "fatigue" drama he and guys here were spewing. That why I agree with slifersd post, it was obvious Pau didn't workout last summer. And he needs more strength training on weights rather than basketball stuff. I know he better get himself together by next fall.

[desertlakerfan]

Call be cynical but to me, Gasol is full of crap. He took the entire summer off last year, one would think that would help him recover from the wear and tear of the past three post season runs and get him in better shape than ever. But guess what, he came into the season great and then started complaining about his minutes about three weeks into the season. His play level also dropped off dramatically since then.

I am not going to argue that Phil probably played him too many minutes and Mitch probably should have done better than signing and keeping Ratliff to back up our bigs, but what the hell did Gasol do last summer to be so out of shape? Gasol is the one who ALLOWED himself to be out of shape and play soft to compensate for his lack of conditioning, not the coach. If he can't stay in shape while resting in the summer, then he needs to be forced to play basketball. I for one am in favor of him playing for Spain in the summer because Gasol is the type of player that doesn't have any self restraint and therefore needs to be pushed to stay in tip top shape.

I don't think I can agree with your knocks on Gasol at all. Pau was playing at a MVP caliber level to start this year with Bynum out, he did not come into camp out of shape at all. He complained about minutes because he knew his body wouldn't last the entire season playing heavy minutes at center, he was right and we saw the end result in the playoffs.

What everyone here is forgetting is that we were trying to go to our fourth straight Finals appearance. You know how many times a team has gone to the Finals 4 times in a row? Twice. Once during Boston's mega 10 chip run when the league was completely different in the 50s-60s, and once in the 80s when the showtime Lakers pulled it off. Complain all you want about professional athletes getting tired, but when you play 9 outta 12 months for 3 straight years and try for your 4th you can and often do run outta gas.

I think Pau just felt the brunt of that exhaustion more than any other Laker, due to Phil playing him too much over the course of the regular season. Over 3k minutes is too many for a big man nearing 30, especially when he's playing out of position in the center spot for a large chunk of those minutes.

[JustAwesome]

If he didn't want to utilize Smith and Caracter, Jackson also could have utilized Artest and Odom more at the PF spot. Even Barnes can play that position in spot minutes.

[Sedale Threatt]

Guy had the summer off, in his absolute prime. No way he should have fallen off the way he did.

[desertlakerfan]

Guy had the summer off, in his absolute prime. No way he should have fallen off the way he did.

Every Laker had the summer off outside of Kobe and Odom, and Pau was far from the only one looking sluggish in the playoffs.

He's also playing the 7th most minutes in the league, the only forward/center in the top 15 that's over 26 and playing a large portion of those minutes banging against centers. I've no clue why these factors are just brushed off by some people.

I mean looking at power forwards and centers, the next guy down the list of minutes played even close to Pau's age is Zach Randolph(32nd overall) who's still a year younger and played nearly 300 less minutes than Pau.

[dockingsched]

i remember in the beginning of the season i brushed off his mpg rise, thinking it was no big deal. i think it was slava aka j-far that had pau gasol's eventual fatigue called the entire time.

[Slava]

^ Good memory

Pau has never been an ironman during his late Memphis years. He'd miss 10-15 games a season just with minor injuries. I kind of figured that was due to lack of ambition in playing for Memphis, so its kind of impressive that he was able to hold on well for us over the past 3 seasons.

PAu & LO were both clocking around 44 MPG with Bynum and Ratliff out. This is the same situation in 2007-08 when all three of Kobe, Pau and LO struggled late in the season due to lack of reliable back ups.

This is why Bynum coming back a little early would have helped a little or else we should have signed another reliable center, who wasn't exactly going extinct. Its not just the physical recovery but the psychological part of focusing on a game day in and day out can be quite draining.

[DEEP3CL]

Well if we're spreading blame here, Phil should have put most of it on him. But like Sedale pointed out he had the whole summer off......I still say it was his physical strength conditioning. Like I said during the time we were chicken fighting about that issues, no way he should've gotten that burnt out. Drew came back December 17th. in Philly. That was only 26 games into the season, a quarter of the season.

Bottom line is Phil botched that situation badly, especially knowing Pau wasn't the toughest guy to grind out like that. Personally to me it was wussy to complain about that a quarter into the season, I understand today's game is more mentally and physically draining than it was 20-30 years ago but when a guy like Wilt can go season's at a time averaging 48 minutes a game.....I just can't by Pau's excuse.

[Sedale Threatt]

Guy had the summer off, in his absolute prime. No way he should have fallen off the way he did.

Every Laker had the summer off outside of Kobe and Odom, and Pau was far from the only one looking sluggish in the playoffs.

True, but nobody fell off as much as he did. Not even close. I'm sorry, but the guy is 30 years old, smack in the middle of his physical prime. There are just no excuses for him to play as poorly as he did, even if I'm sure mental fatigue was a legitimate issue. Great player, still one of my favorites. But he deserves his fair share of blame, just like everybody else.

[TruSkool]

Then Pau needs to take the summer off rather than play for his Spanish team.

[Kalidogg24]

Pau and Kobe these past 4 years has played the most basketball with the shortest vacation time out of any NBA player in the league.

Some Laker haters wanna say were using it as an excuse but it's evident fatigue was an issue.
We all wanted the 3 peat but going to the Finals 4 times in a row is not an easy feat in any way.

This will be the first time in awhile that Pau and Kobe will have 5 months off before the new season.
They will come back stronger in 2012!

[picc]

Disgusting.

[vmor]

Pau was 7th in the league in overall minutes at 3037, and he was the ONLY player over 26 in the top 12 in minutes played...

It is also much harder for a 7ft center/pf than for a 6ft guard. Anybody who didn't play a competititve sport at least on college level has absolutely no clue how hard!

Pau and Kobe these past 4 years has played the most basketball with the shortest vacation time out of any NBA player in the league...
They will come back stronger in 2012!

That's at least part of the reason why BOTH Gasol + Kobe played so badly (for them) in the playoffs, not just Pau. Watch the replays: in 4th quarters of every playoffs game Kobe was making 4 - 6 turnovers instead of passing the ball, and was leaving Mavs' shooters free (just like everybody else), so we shouldn't blame just one of them. At least Pau admits his part...

Hope that you are right with coming back stronger next year, Kalidogg24