The former Los Angeles Lakers player and his wife are already the parents of a son named Max and a daughter named Elisabet Gianna, who is named after Kobe Bryant’s late daughter Gianna.
Pau Gasol’s squad is expanding slightly.
In collaborative posts on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram on Sunday, July 28, the retired NBA All-Star player, 44, and his wife, Cat McDonnell, disclosed that they are expecting their third child.
“New Rookie signing!” the couple captioned their posts, alongside photos of their current family of four as they posed together in their living room. Their daughter and son could be seen sporting some custom-made T-shirts reading “Big Sister” and “Big Brother,” respectively.
Pau Gasol twitted a post on twitter: “Gasol starting 5, coming this fall 2024 season. 🧔🏻♂️👩🏼👧🏻👦🏼👶🏻,” Gasol and McDonnell jokingly added.
Max, a one-year-old son, and Elisabet Gianna, a three-year-old daughter, are the children of the former Los Angeles Laker player and his wife. Max’s arrival was proclaimed by the couple in December 2022 via an Instagram post that read, “Our baby boy has arrived!!” in both English and Spanish.
“We are beyond happy to welcome our son to the world,” they continued at the time. “Everything has gone really well and we are officially a family of 4!”
In the past, Gasol has been open and honest about his close friendship with Kobe Bryant, a former teammate of his who passed away in January 2020. When Elisabet was born in September 2023.
He and McDonnell announced that they would be naming her after Bryant’s daughter Gianna, who was 13 years old at the time. Both Bryant and Elisabet had passed away tragically in a helicopter crash in January 2020.
Additionally, they decided that Kobe Bryant’s wife, Vanessa Bryant, would be the godmother of their kid.
“Elisabet Gianna Gasol 😍, a very meaningful name for our super beautiful daughter!!” Gasol wrote at the time.
Gasol said in 2021, when he was just a father to one child, that he was a “girl dad,” and he also discussed the death of his close friend Kobe.
“Obviously, the way the accident, the tragedy, [it] was an incredibly hard hit for a lot of people, especially for the ones that love Kobe and Gigi, and obviously, the family and friends of all the seven other victims,” he said.
In spite of the tragedy that had an effect on his life, as well as the lives of a great number of famous players in the NBA, the Spanish basketball player stated that becoming a father for the first time had a positive influence on him.
“Ellie is incredible and we are looking forward to expanding our family,” he told, calling Elisabet by her nickname and reflecting on how many children he’d like to have in the future. “We’ll see what number it ends up being, so one at a time, because you don’t realize the amount of work and dedication that a kid requires until you actually have it.”
“It sounds really all good theoretically, but you have to be … you’re responsible for a human being,” he added of raising kids. “I like to be present with my children as much as I can, but I also want to do a lot of things because I have opportunities to do exceptional things. Finding that balance is going to be always the key to being able to be present and having a healthy family life and then also pursue ambitious goals outside of a family.”
