Pau Gasol

Pau Gasol (born July 6, 1980) is a famous Catalan basketball player. The son of a medical doctor, Gasol played in Spain for FC Barcelona, where he had an average of 11.3 points per game. He now plays in the NBA for the Memphis Grizzlies, where he won the NBA Rookie of the Year award in 2002.

Gasol is averaging over 14 points a game with the Grizzlies and has often been compared with fellow European players Toni Kukoc and Dirk Nowitzki. He is a member of Spain's national basketball team, and is already considered by many fans in his home country to be the best basketball player ever from Spain. Remarkably, though, he maintains that his top goal in life is to follow in his family's footsteps and become a medical doctor in the future too.

(Name is pronounced ['paw G@'zOl])