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Marc Gasol addressed LeBron James’ lighthearted comments about the 2013 Defensive Player of the Year award.
In an all-time great career like LeBron James’, there’s really only one piece of hardware that’s still missing: a Defensive Player of the Year trophy.
Back in 2013, one of LeBron’s better defensive seasons, the award went to Marc Gasol of the Memphis Grizzlies. Despite the fact that Gasol will now be joining LeBron and the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers, the King hasn’t quite let that go yet.
As he jokingly told Spectrum SportsNet on Monday, James believes that “Gasol has my Defensive Player of the Year trophy at his house.” In an interview with Esmaixada, Big Spain addressed the DPOY dig from his new teammate with a smile (translated via Reddit):
“I always think that individual awards in the world of sports are very subjective. I don’t believe too much in them nor am I a supporter of them. What I’m clear about is that, more than for me, that award was for the Grizzlies.
“It was for a way of working together. I was important in the outline, but Tony Allen should be in the conversation too. What matters now is next year’s DPOY, and he’s 35, but a player like him can win it without any problems if that’s what he’s missing.”
Marc Gasol is known as a fierce competitor but also as one of the NBA‘s nicest guys. This response is vintage Gasol, both standing his ground out of loyalty to his former Grizzlies team but also lightly telling James that if he wants a DPOY award so bad, he’s still more than capable of going out and getting one at age 35 as his Lakers teammate.