Spain's Gasol close to making history

Written by Jeff Garcia on .

Aside from chasing a gold medal, Spain's Pau Gasol is also chasing Olympic history.

Should Gasol come out of the Olympic tournament with the highest scoring average among players, he will tie basketball great Oscar Schmidt for the most Olympic scoring titles (h/t ProBasketball Talk).

Gasol led in scoring at the 2004, and 2008 Olympics and currently is tied in scoring with 20.6 points per game with Australia's Patty Mills. And considering Mills is perhaps Team Australia's main threat offensively, when they face Team U.S.A., expect Mills to be defended like no other in the quarterfinal match up.

Spain, on the other hand, have multiple offensive threats aside from Pau. His brother Marc Gasol, Sergio Fernandez, Rudy Fernandez, Serge Ibaka, and Jose Calderon can shoulder some if not most of the offensive load for Spain thus making it more than likely Pau may come out of the 2012 Olympiad tieing Schmidt.

In the end, I am sure Pau doesn't care for individual awards and would prefer to see Spain secure a medal but should he tie the record, this would just be a testament to his continued support and dedication to representing his home country.


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