QUESTION. How are you? Has the sun gone?
RESPONSE. A little calmer. I'm trying to focus on the team, things I must do to complete the best season possible. I try to be positive and to get good readings from bad situations.
P. What is the best time possible after its most atypical season?
A. Well, play at a high level collectively and individually and that this will lead us where we need to go.
P. Where?
R. Our aspirations are still maximum. I never thought otherwise since I came to the Lakers.
P. I'd like to take the view a few days ago, on a film rewind may not like. It premiered on December 8. How do you say will leave the Lakers in a transfer?
A. I told the manager, Mitch Kupchak. He said he had been talking to other teams and that there were real opportunities to come out in a trade for another player. There are always rumors, but you never think that eventually become reality. After tell me if I thought it was true, that could happen. I appreciated the honesty to tell me because many times you hear the last. Teams do not usually take that deal. Do not transmit anything unless it is done and you have to put to pack.
P. I can not imagine his face.
R. Man, I picked up a little by surprise. I was thinking. I've always tried to keep a cool head throughout this ordeal, especially to be positive, because everything was out of my control and my reach. Do not worry about things I can not control. I thought, "If I stay, try to be the best player possible and if I go somewhere else, will the same thing." That is, try to remain the same as ever or what I have been throughout my career where I've been there.
P. Their position is logical, but I think it took so leave the Lakers, and with it the chance to fight for the ring, to play on a losing team with no major goals or reconstruction.
A. Not the first time . I've been to the Grizzlies, who did not reach 30 wins and eventually we got in the playoffs and got 50. It would be a strange situation for me. Yes I have to admit that a change would have been difficult to assimilate.
P. How did the hours following the revelation of Kupchak, when it seemed that he had been traded to Houston and then everything changed by the veto of the NBA?
R. Internet was pending in front of the computer to see who announced something.
P. I can hardly think of the scene: a Spanish sports legend in front of a screen that will tell you eventually where to play. Viva Hollywood!.
R. Thus. In Hoopshype MARCA.com and saw that it was done. And actually was. Then the NBA stopped operating. They were times of trouble. Also pending was mobile. I was hoping someone in the franchise I called to confirm the transaction. But it rang. The hours went by until it stopped everything. I was with friends and my brother Marc They clothed me in those moments of uncertainty.
P. Then there was the 'media day' of the Lakers and the NBA said it was becoming a business and less a sport.
A. Yes. Right now, the new agreement, in the franchise is taken into account the financial system. The templates with several players with very high contracts are strongly affected and punished by the new agreement. So I said this. I meant that it is not so much about sports or basketball teams but to make ends meet.
P. But Pau, could be interpreted as a criticism of the transfer system itself or the NBA, so lucrative in many cases, including yours.
R. also. That has always existed, but now I think that trend will accentuate the economic issue. The new agreement conditions much more to the time of making templates and transfers will occur that will be difficult to explain except from that perspective. That's what I meant. If I paid less, not so much my presence would challenge the Lakers. I have three years left on his contract with very large quantities, I think with the seventh best NBA contract. My franchise is over the salary cap. The new agreement punishes a lot. So I said what I said.
P. Have you been good?
R. [laughs]. No, because no human being can feel well, and yes. We all know that at any time in the NBA you can cross, sometimes with positive consequences as in 2008 when I left Memphis, and sometimes with negative consequences if they finally salts and land where you are on a machine with lower aspirations. It is something that can happen.
I was lucky enough to play only two teams in the NBA, the Grizzlies and Lakers. There are players who go through eight, nine and 10 teams. I am privileged and I do not care about things that do not depend on me. Try to help the team achieve its goals by controlling the things I can control: training each day, helping my teammates and giving everything on the track.
P. He says that the reason the Lakers can transfer is the new covenant and high contract. Do not you too said its performance in recent playoffs?
R. It is clear that the performance of the last three weeks of last season was not good. If it had ended differently, we would not be so. But the reality is what it is and plays dealing with it. What happened last season can not be changed. What I can change is trying to improve that and help the team do its best to meet the targets.
P. Do you still have the desire to retire in the Lakers?
A. Well, that was my intention. I decide not understand, obviously [laughs], but from the first day I got my intention was to fulfill my contract. I honor what I sign. And if you have to go get out of here, I will be the player I've always been. No more.
P. Do not need to be told that you want?
R. I have been told not to cross me, the chances of a transfer are very small, minimal. But should there be an interesting opportunity for them and if they believe they can improve the team in the short, medium or long term because they will do, but that is something that can happen forever. Now, in February or June. I do not think peace has hundred percent, but if the season starts and I begin to do what I have to do my job and I make my computer safe position will be strengthened.
P. So it must be by now Pau Gasol?
R. Every day you have to show your talent, your professionalism and your desire to work. Every day, around the world.
P. Explain what the plan is sporting the Lakers, if they do, because the movements do not seem successful
A. I would say yes they have it.
P. As if to say no.
R. The strategy did not know. I quite I have with train horns and break each day to start the season to cap a year that will play 66 games in 120 days. I do not think beyond or on things that are not my competition. Those are things that are not in my hand.
P. It was a way of introducing the subject of transfer, to my mind incomprehensible, Lamar Odom to Dallas. Is not it a bad move?
R. [Silence]. Lamar and I did not take the opportunity to go to another team. He understood that he had been disrespected after so many years in Los Angeles and its contribution to the team. He got very upset and asked for the transfer, preferably to a team with aspirations. He ended up in Dallas. I wish we had followed us. Miss you, wherever you are and wherever it is I, Lamar Lamar player and person. Last season was the best of his career. It was unique things on the court.
P. What you are doing with Mike Brown? Do they change much the Lakers?
A. Yes, change. I do well, the coaching staff has been very excited and looking forward with great energy and making the team work hard. Mike pays attention to basic details of the game and I'm happy in that sense. Seems to rely heavily on the inside of the computer game, know that there are major players in there and great.
P. And what these new Lakers aim?
R. At all.
P. In all these days, is not Kobe Bryant expected to tuck a little more?
R. Kobe and thanked when I had not been pierced. He told me that the fact was not out or continue in range, but has sent me is very happy to continue here. And we must not give too many turns.
