Did Pau Gasol Confirm Off-Court Issue with Girlfriend, Kobe?

It’s been a long month for Pau Gasol, and it looks like the summer will be even longer. On Friday we passed along a report saying Pau Gasol’s girlfriend broke up with him and that Pau was blaming Kobe’s wife for it. When asked about the report, Pau expressed dismay over the “lies” and Kobe said his wife barely knew Pau’s girlfriend.

Now that the Lakers were embarrassingly swept out the playoffs and went down dishonorably, Gasol seems to have opened up about some of the issues. From Bill Plaschke’s column in the LA Times:

“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.

As if that wasn’t enough, Marc Spears wrote at Yahoo! that “Pau Gasol … seemed to confirm reports that he was bothered by off-the-court issues. “I’m going to look back and see everything that’s been going on,” he said. “Try to handle it better. And whatever goes on, on or off the floor, just try to keep it that way and not let it affect anything that goes on on the floor.”

You could argue that Pau Gasol’s off-court issue was “lies” about his personal life, but why would an erroneous report cause an issue for him? That wouldn’t make sense. The only logical conclusion is that Pau is confirming there were some off-court problems going on with him. The only question is whether or not the issue was a problem with Kobe, a problem with his girlfriend, or both.

Additionally, something else to ponder, for what it’s worth, is this tweet from Scott and BR who form the morning team on Double X sports radio in San Diego “Kobe Bryant should be ashamed, you NEVER tell you wife your friend is cheating, especially KOBE who we all know is not an angel!”

It’s up to you to believe what you want at this point, but the doubt over the truth regarding the initial report seems to be dissipating.

Wanna see pictures of Pau Gasol’s girlfriend? Go here
Previous stories:
Pau Gasol carrying a purse err man-bag
Are Pau Gasol and Kobe Bryant fighting over girl trouble?
Pau Gasol disappointed with ‘lies’ about girlfriend problems
Phil Jackson gets physical with Pau Gasol during timeout