For Chicago big man Pau Gasol, the Bulls’ home matchup with the Charlotte Hornets on Saturday evening represented a unique milestone in the form of his 1,000th career NBA regular-season game.
Gasol, now 35 years old, was in a jovial mood on social media as tipoff approached. In fact, the seven-footer even created a special #Pau1000 hashtag to encourage fans to submit videos of their favorite Gasol moments over his first 1,000 games.
Today I’ll be playing my 1000 #RegularSeason game & I wanna celebrate with you! Upload a video with your favorite play of the ones I’ve made
— Pau Gasol (@paugasol) December 5, 2015
… in any regular season game. You can be as creative as you like… There’s a prize for the best video! Use #Pau1000 — Pau Gasol (@paugasol) December 5, 2015
Fun idea, right?
Unfortunately for the Spaniard, fellow European big man and friend Dirk Nowitzki was following that activity. From there, the Dallas legend decided to have some fun at Gasol’s expense by posting video of when Nikola Vucevic threw down a poster dunk on Gasol during the 2014-15 season:
@paugasol https://t.co/2Nm49A8B1i #pau1000 congrats
— Dirk Nowitzki (@swish41) December 5, 2015
For his part, the 15-year veteran Gasol took the joke in stride:
@swish41 there have been a few of those too! ???? Thanks for sharing mate! ????????????
— Pau Gasol (@paugasol) December 5, 2015
Gasol remains a force in the middle, averaging 14.4 points, 10.8 rebounds and 2.0 blocks in 30 minutes per game with the Bulls. Because of that, it’s not too difficult for him to shake off light-hearted criticism.
That said, we have a feeling that Nowitzki may not win the prize for best video.
Ben DuBose is a veteran sports reporter who has followed the Houston Rockets and the NBA since Hakeem Olajuwon was Akeem Olajuwon. He writes for both SheridanHoops and ClutchFans, an independent Rockets blog. You can follow him on Twitter.