{"id":184589,"date":"2025-10-02T08:45:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T08:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/184589\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T08:45:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T08:45:11","slug":"parker-wanted-a-title-with-france-more-than-an-nba-ring-says-gasol-fiba-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/184589\/","title":{"rendered":"Parker wanted a title with France more than an NBA ring, says Gasol\u00a0|\u00a0FIBA Basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (USA) – Pau Gasol<\/a> has revealed that Tony Parker<\/a> was so desperate to have success in international basketball early in his career that the French point guard would have traded an NBA title “for a medal or a gold medal.”<\/p>\n

The Spain legend made the comment while making a guest appearance on the NBA Today show, explaining how important it is for FIBA stars to reach the podium at major events.<\/p>\n

This was just a few days after Giannis Antetokounmpo claimed his first medal at EuroBasket 2025, in Riga. After Greece’s win over Finland in a Third-Place Game thriller, two-time NBA MVP and NBA champion Antetokounmpo said: “This is probably the greatest accomplishment I have ever accomplished as an athlete.”<\/p>\n

Related Articles<\/p>\n

\"\"Giannis: “This medal is my greatest accomplishment”<\/p>\n

“So at the 2007 European Championship (EuroBasket) in Madrid, Tony came to me before a big game that they had to play and he had won already, I think, two or three NBA championships (with San Antonio) at that point and he comes to me and he says, ‘Pau, I would trade an NBA championship for a medal or for a gold with my national team.’<\/p>\n

“He finally got it in 2013 and I know how much that means to him and his family. That’s what it means to a lot of international players to play for the country and achieve that success for their fans.”<\/p>\n

By EuroBasket 2007, Parker already had one medal. He had claimed a bronze at EuroBasket 2005 in Belgrade and despite missing the podium in 2007, he won silver at EuroBasket 2011 in Lithuania.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Parker captured the gold medal and tournament MVP award at EuroBasket 2013 in Ljubljana<\/p>\n

The gold medal and MVP award did not happen for Parker until EuroBasket 2013 in Slovenia, where his team beat Spain in the Semi-Finals and then Lithuania in the Final.<\/p>\n

At EuroBasket 2015 in Lille, France came within a whisker of reaching the Final but Pau Gasol scored 40 points and led Spain to an overtime triumph against Les Bleus. This was arguably Pau Gasol’s best performance with Spain.<\/p>\n

Parker and France bounced back to win the bronze, while Spain defeated Lithuania in the championship game. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Parker claimed his last medal with France at EuroBasket 2015<\/p>\n

FIBA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (USA) – Pau Gasol has revealed that Tony Parker was so desperate to have success in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-184589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}