Pau Gasol knew it was wrong, and he did it only after a sponsor insisted.
That’s his response to criticism over the photo where he and his Spanish teammates are shown pulling back their faces to create slanted eyes — all in preparation for their trip to China.
“Some of us didn’t feel comfortable doing it just because to me it was a little clownish for our part to be doing that,” Gasol told Martin Rogers of Yahoo! Sports. “But the sponsors insisted and insisted. I think it is just a bad idea I guess to do that, but it was never intended to be offensive or racist against anybody.
“I didn’t find it very funny. I didn’t find it offensive, either. I guess some guys didn’t mind. To me I don’t want to be that way, I guess, to be doing that stuff.
“If anybody feels offended by it we totally apologize for it. We never meant anything offensive by it.”
