By Alex Madrid/ info@eurohoops.net
Marc Gasol finished the season by winning his first NBA championship title. Something that wouldn’t have happened if the Memphis Grizzlies didn’t go against his wishes and refused to trade him to the Toronto Raptors.
After the way the season concluded for him, Gasol feels blessed that the Grizzlies “ignored him.”
“There have been few players that haven’t been traded over the years in the NBA. If it had been depended on me, I wouldn’t have been traded. I always thought I could reverse the situation there [in Memphis] and bring the team to the top. But, thank God, they ignored me,” Gasol said to reporters in the Antiga Fabrica Estrella Damm in Barcelona, per the Europa Press news agency.
Gasol also talked about Nikola Mirotic’s transfer to Barcelona and return to EuroLeague. “I’m not surprised. At the beginning I was, but whoever chooses to return to Europe while he can get a good contract on important teams in the NBA makes a brave decision. His last year was difficult with trades, the birth of a child… you are looking for some stability because being a player is important but also to be a person.”