Pau Gasol was driving home when his wife informed him of Kobe Bryant's death.
"I completely froze mentally and emotionally. I felt like I wanted to give up driving like my body, but I knew I had to make it to the house to find out what was going on," Gasol told ClutchPoints' Ryan Ward. "My first reaction was, 'Please don't say that. It's not funny. I don't know what type of sick joke this could be.'
Gasol added that as he saw the news was potentially true after arriving home, he still couldn't believe it. "I refused to believe it for days," he said.
The Los Angeles Lakers acquired Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies in a midseason blockbuster deal during the 2007-08 campaign. Gasol and Bryant led the Lakers to NBA titles in 2009 and 2010.
But the two maintained more than just a successful on-court working relationship, growing closer together away from the heat of competition.
"To me, he was kind of the big brother that I never had," Gasol said. "A person that I could count on, that I could rely on. That I could reach out, and we could talk, and we would just enjoy it.
"Enjoy talking about life, talking about decisions, talking about personal stuff. How I would kind of teach their daughters the culture and the arts and stuff like that, and how he would help my kids."
