Pau Gasol was clearly voted as FIBA’s Men’s Player of the Year award for 2008. Gasol led his Spanish National Team to a silver medal in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He scored, defended and gave his teammates confidence while scaring team USA for the fight of the gold medal.
Rudy Fernandez, Gasols Spanish teammate came in second in votes.
Below are the other rankings
| MEN | EXPERT | PUBLIC | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pau Gasol | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| Rudy Fernandez | 2 | 6 | 2 |
| Dirk Nowitzki | 3 | 5 | 2.6 |
| Ramunas Siskauskas | 4 | 4 | 3.2 |
| Tony Parker | 5 | 7 | 4.2 |
| Hidayet Turkoglu | 6 | 1 | 4.3 |
| Andrei Kirilenko | 7 | 9 | 5.8 |
| Luol Deng | 8 | 11 | 6.7 |
| Andris Biedrins | 10 | 2 | 7.2 |
| Dimitris Diamantidis | 9 | 12 | 7.5 |
| Nikola Pekovic | 11 | 10 | 8.7 |
| Zoran Planinic | 12 | 8 | 9.2 |
With the marks of top Spanish National teams and figures such as Rafael Nadal who just won the Wimbledon after a 44 year drought for Spanish Players and the Spanish Soccer team who also won the Euro2008 after not winning in the 40s. The national teams for Spain both women and men are hoping to follow in those footsteps in Pekin during the Olympic Summer Basketball Games!