All-Star Lakers forward Pau Gasol had to go on record Tuesday to make it clear that he hadn't broken up with his girlfriend, that Kobe Bryant's wife Vanessa had nothing to do with the breakup-that-wasn't-one, and that this supposed soap opera wasn't the reason he played poorly in the postseason. Happy now, media?
Not unlike what we heard last season, when completely unfounded reports of a tryst between LeBron James' mother and former Cavaliers guard Delonte West surfaced, another "let's just think this into being true" rumor made the rounds last week.
You definitely heard it, and if only for just a second, lent it some credibility. Pau Gasol's play in the postseason had sunk, he was terrible on both ends, and Kobe Bryant was clearly furious with his All-Star big man. And because there are lots of websites and lots of reasons that we want to go into beyond boring pragmatic reasons (the matchups weren't good for Pau, the offense changed a bit, his legs were tired), we make crap up.
The difference is that the West/James rumor, while passed around quite a bit, only saw mainstream attention in the form of disgraced former Houston Rockets guard Calvin Murphy, who went on a radio show last year to swear that it was true.
This year, the Gasol rumors made it all the way to the Los Angeles Times, and to ESPN's "Around the Horn," thanks to the unfortunately ham-fisted work of Bill Plaschke, who brought up the rumor in print and on air as if it warranted consideration as a factor. Not the wake of the rumor acting as a factor, but the actual "story" itself (though just a rumor then, and now) acting as a factor.
This is what showed up in his column on Monday:
"I have to learn from this," Gasol said. ''I have to learn that when something happens off the court, you have to keep it off the court."
He was referring to the report that he stopped talking to Bryant during the postseason because Bryant's wife, Vanessa, had contributed to the breakup of Gasol and his longtime girlfriend. Lakers fans will remember that Karl Malone once publicly accused Vanessa of interfering with his personal life in a similar fashion.
First, Malone and Bryant's relationship may have chilled in the wake of some strange comments Malone made to Bryant's wife, but the reason Malone faded down the stretch of his 2003-04 season spent with Los Angeles is because he was playing with a torn MCL. It was during the quick and rushed rehab for this injury that he made the comments to Bryant, who was understandably dismayed. But "playing on one leg" doesn't really scan well, revisionist history takes hold (because it was definitely Vanessa Bryant that suddenly made Karl Malone so bad at defending three screen and roll, or hitting jumpers), and this is what makes it to print in 2011.
Secondly, Plaschke has absolutely no direct link between Gasol ruminating over off-the-court issues and the soap opera story that Plaschke chose to believe into being true, without any confirmation about its legitimacy.
Thankfully we have Ramona Shelburne to clear things up for us. This is what she filed late Tuesday night:
On Tuesday, Gasol called rumors of a rift between he and Bryant or a breakup with his girlfriend "absolutely false."
"My girlfriend and I are fine, we're happy, we're doing well. Kobe and I are fine," Gasol told ESPNLosAngeles.com in the parking lot outside the Lakers training facility Tuesday, after his exit interview with Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak and coach Phil Jackson.
"She [Lopez Castro] was suffering because she saw me suffering. And I was suffering because I was seeing her suffering. When you add that to other stuff to what's already happening, it's tough."
Gasol said that he didn't realize the extent to which the Internet chatter had spread as an explanation for his subpar play during the Lakers disappointingly short playoff run this year because he doesn't read articles about himself or the team on a regular basis.
In Shelburne's Twitter account, following the publication of her interview, she went on to point out that Gasol told her that the real reasons for his well below subpar play in the postseason had to do with "tired legs," and a change in the Laker offense that anyone who was paying attention to the cuts off the ball (and not gossip websites at press row) would have noticed in an instant.
Not only was Gasol turned into a more orthodox pick-and-roll partner with both Bryant and Derek Fisher in the playoffs, but he was also asked to be a typical low-post presence. He has succeeded at times in both roles during his career, but more often than not Gasol struggles to hit that baseline jumper that was afforded him many times in the playoffs (he prefers it at the elbow extended), and he's out of his element when handed the ball down low, with nobody cutting off of him.
The Lakers just dumped it in, and watched. It was almost shocking to behold, for those of us who have watched this team's offense so intently, as two and sometimes three Lakers stayed on the strong side as Gasol was asked to go to work, his thin frame poorly suited to uproot defenders and pile in for the jump hook.
Toss in some terrible defense and decreased rebounding from Gasol (his rebound rate went from 15.6 percent in the regular season to 13.6 percent in the 10-game postseason), and you have a miserable playoff run that was perhaps loomed the largest of the many factors behind Los Angeles' needless early exit. Poor decision-making offensively, terrible perimeter defense, and the relative merits of the Dallas Mavericks also aided in the demise.
Not some soap opera.
Now we know. And thanks to Shelburne, for tracking Gasol down in the parking lot and finding out.
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