Coordinates	28°36′50″N77°12′32″N
Name	Los Angeles
Official name	City of Los Angeles
Settlement type	City
Nickname	L.A., the City of Angels, Angeltown, La-La Land
Website	lacity.org
Image seal	Seal of Los Angeles, California.svg
Map caption	Location within Los Angeles County in the state of California
Pushpin map	USA2
Pushpin map caption	Location in the United States
Coordinates display	inline,title
Coordinates region	US-CA
Subdivision type	Country
Subdivision name	United States
Subdivision type1	State
Subdivision name1	California
Subdivision type2	County
Subdivision name2	Los Angeles
Government type	Mayor-Council
Governing body	Los Angeles City Council
Leader title	Mayor
Leader name	Antonio Villaraigosa
Leader title1	City Attorney
Leader name1	Carmen Trutanich
Leader title2	City Controller
Leader name2	Wendy Greuel
unit pref	US
area footnotes
area total sq mi	502.693
area land sq mi	468.670
area water sq mi	34.023
area total km2	1301.970
area land km2	1213.850
area water km2	88.119
area water percent	6.77
Population as of	2010
Population note	2010 United States Census
Population total	3792621
Population rank	(2nd US, 48th World)
Population urban	14,940,000
Population metro	15,250,000
Population blank1 title	CSA
Population blank1	17786419
Population demonym	Angeleno
Population density sq mi	8092.30
Timezone	PST
Utc offset	-8
Timezone dst	PDT
Utc offset dst	−7
Latns	N
Coordinates	34°03′″N118°15′″N
Longew	W
Elevation m	71
Elevation ft	233 (city hall)
Postal code type	ZIP code
Postal code	90001–90068, 90070–90084, 90086–90089, 90091, 90093–90097, 90099, 90101–90103, 90174, 90185, 90189, 90291-90293, 91040–91043, 91303–91308, 91342–91349, 91352–91353, 91356–91357, 91364–91367, 91401–91499, 91601–91609
Area code	213, 310/424, 323, 661, 747/818
Established title	Settled
Established date	September 4, 1781
Established title2	Incorporated
Established date2	April 4, 1850
Footnotes	}}

Los Angeles ( ; ), with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in the state of California, and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California. Often known by its initials L.A., the city is the focal point of the larger Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana metropolitan statistical area, which contains 12,828,837 people as of 2010, and is one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world and the second largest in the United States. Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated and one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the United States, while the entire Los Angeles area itself has been recognized as the most diverse of the nation's largest cities. The city's inhabitants are referred to as "Angelenos".

Los Angeles was founded on September 4, 1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood.

Nicknamed the ''City of Angels'', Los Angeles is a world center of business, international trade, entertainment, culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, and education. It is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. Los Angeles has been ranked the third richest city and fifth most powerful and influential city in the world. The Los Angeles combined statistical area (CSA) has a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of $831 billion (as of 2008), making it the third largest economic center in the world, after the Greater Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. As the home base of Hollywood, it is also known as the "Entertainment Capital of the World," leading the world in the creation of television and stage production, motion pictures, video games, and recorded music. The importance of the entertainment business to the city has led many celebrities to call Los Angeles and its surrounding suburbs home. Additionally, Los Angeles hosted the 1932 and 1984 Summer Olympics.

History

The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva (or Gabrieleños) and Chumash Native American tribes thousands of years ago. Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese-born explorer, claimed the area of southern California for the Spanish Empire in 1542. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2, 1769.

In 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcangel, the first mission in the area. On September 4, 1781, a group of forty-four settlers known as "Los Pobladores" founded the pueblo called "La Reyna de los Angeles", named for Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula (Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the Porciúncula River). Two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto with African, Amerindian, and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820 the population had increased to about 650 residents. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street, the oldest part of Los Angeles.

New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, and the pueblo continued as a part of Mexico. During Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico, made Los Angeles Alta California's regional capital. Mexican rule ended during the Mexican–American War: Americans took control from the Californios after a series of battles, culminating with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847.

Railroads arrived with the completion of the Southern Pacific line to Los Angeles in 1876. Oil was discovered in 1892, and by 1923, the discoveries had helped California become the country's largest oil producer, accounting for about one-quarter of the world's petroleum output.

By 1900, the population had grown to more than 102,000, putting pressure on the city's water supply. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, under the supervision of William Mulholland, assured the continued growth of the city.

In 1910, not only had the city of Los Angeles annexed Hollywood, but there were already at least 10 movie companies operating in the city. By 1921, more than 80 percent of the world's film industry was concentrated in L.A. The money generated by the industry kept the city insulated from much of the economic pain suffered by the rest of the country during the Great Depression. By 1930, the population surpassed one million. In 1932, the city hosted the Summer Olympics. After the second world war, the city grew more rapidly than ever, sprawling into the San Fernando Valley. In 1969, Los Angeles became one of the birthplaces of the Internet, as the first ARPANET transmission was sent from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to SRI in Menlo Park.

In 1984, the city hosted the Summer Olympic Games for the second time. Despite being boycotted by 14 Communist countries, the 1984 Olympics became more financially successful than any previous, and the second Olympics to turn a profit until then – the other, according to an analysis of contemporary newspaper reports, being the 1932 Summer Olympics, also held in Los Angeles.

Racial tensions erupted on April 29, 1992, with the acquittal by a Simi Valley jury of the police officers captured on videotape beating Rodney King, culminating in large-scale riots. In 1994, the 6.7 Northridge earthquake shook the city, causing $12.5 billion in damage and 72 deaths. The century ended with the Rampart scandal, one of the most extensive documented cases of police misconduct in American history.

In 2002, voters defeated efforts by the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood to secede from the city.

Geography

Topography

Los Angeles is irregularly shaped and covers a total area of , comprising of land and of water. The city extends for longitudinally and for latitudinally. The perimeter of the city is .

Los Angeles is both flat and hilly. The highest point in the city is Mount Lukens, located at the northeastern end of the San Fernando Valley. The eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains stretches from Downtown to the Pacific Ocean and separates the Los Angeles Basin from the San Fernando Valley. Other hilly parts of Los Angeles include the Mt. Washington area north of Downtown, eastern parts such as Boyle Heights, the Crenshaw district around the Baldwin Hills, and the San Pedro district.

thumb|240px|Mallards on the Los Angeles RiverThe Los Angeles River, which is largely seasonal, is the primary drainage channel. It was straightened and lined in 51 miles of concrete by the Army Corps of Engineers to act as a flood control channel. The river begins in the Canoga Park district of the city, flows east from the San Fernando Valley along the north edge of the Santa Monica Mountains, and turns south through the city center, flowing to its mouth in the Port of Long Beach at the Pacific Ocean. The smaller Ballona Creek flows into the Santa Monica Bay at Playa del Rey.

The Los Angeles area is rich in native plant species due in part to a diversity in habitats, including beaches, wetlands, and mountains. The most prevalent botanical environment is coastal sage scrub, which covers the hillsides in combustible chaparral. Native plants include: California poppy, matilija poppy, toyon, Coast Live Oak, and Giant Wildrye. Many of these native species, such as the Los Angeles sunflower, have become so rare as to be considered endangered. Though it is not native to the area, the official tree of Los Angeles is the Coral Tree (''Erythrina caffra'') and the official flower of Los Angeles is the Bird of Paradise (''Strelitzia reginae''). Mexican Fan Palms, California Fan Palms, and Canary Island Palms can be seen throughout the Los Angeles area, despite the latter being non-indigenous to Southern California.

Geology

Los Angeles is subject to earthquakes due to its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire. The geologic instability has produced numerous faults, which cause approximately 10,000 earthquakes annually. One of the major faults is the San Andreas Fault. Located at the boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, it is predicted to be the source of Southern California's next big earthquake. Major earthquakes to have hit the Los Angeles area include the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake, the 1971 San Fernando earthquake near Sylmar, and the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. Nevertheless, all but a few quakes are of low intensity and are not felt. The Los Angeles basin and metropolitan area are also at risk from blind thrust earthquakes. Parts of the city are also vulnerable to tsunamis; harbor areas were damaged by waves from the Valdivia earthquake in 1960.

Climate

Los Angeles has a Subtropical-Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification ''Csb'' on the coast, ''Csa'' inland), and receives just enough annual precipitation to avoid Köppen's ''BSh'' (semi-arid climate) classification. Los Angeles has plenty of sunshine throughout the year, with an average of only 35 days with measurable precipitation annually.

The average annual temperature in downtown is : during the day and at night. In the coldest month, January, the temperature typically ranges from during the day and at night. In the warmest month – August – the temperature typically ranges from during the day and around at night. Temperatures exceed on a dozen or so days in the year, from one day a month in April, May, June and November to three days a month in July, August, October and to five days in September. Temperatures are subject to substantial daily swings; in inland areas the difference between the average daily low and the average daily high is over 30 °F (17 °C). The average annual temperature of the sea is , from in January to in August. Hours of sunshine total more than 3,000 per year, from an average of 7 hours of sunshine per day in December to an average of 12 in July.

The Los Angeles area is also subject to phenomena typical of a microclimate, causing extreme variations in temperature in close physical proximity to each other. For instance, the average July maximum temperature at the Santa Monica Pier is whereas it is in Canoga Park. The city, like much of the southern California coast, is subject to a late spring/early summer weather phenomenon called "June Gloom." This involves overcast or foggy skies in the morning which yield to sun by early afternoon.

Downtown Los Angeles averages of precipitation annually, which mainly occurs during the winter and spring (November through April) with generally moderate rain showers, but often as heavy rainfall and thunderstorms during winter storms. The coast gets slightly less rainfall, while the mountains get slightly more. However the San Fernando Valley Region of Los Angeles can get between of rain per year. Years of average rainfall are rare; the usual pattern is bimodal, with a short string of dry years (perhaps ) followed by one or two wet years that make up the average. Snowfall is extremely rare in the city basin, but the mountains within city limits typically receive snowfall every winter. The greatest snowfall recorded in downtown Los Angeles was in 1932. The highest recorded temperature in downtown Los Angeles is on September 27, 2010 and the lowest recorded temperature is on December 22, 1944.

Cityscape

The city is divided into over 80 districts and neighborhoods, many of which were incorporated places or communities that were annexed by the city. Greater Los Angeles includes a number of enclaves and nearby communities. Generally, the city is divided into the following areas: Downtown Los Angeles, East Los Angeles and Northeast Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, the Harbor Area, Greater Hollywood, Wilshire, the Westside, and the San Fernando and Crescenta Valleys.

Some well-known communities within Los Angeles include West Adams, Watts, Leimert Park, Baldwin Hills, Venice, the Downtown Financial District, Silver Lake, Hollywood, Koreatown, Westwood and the more affluent areas of Bel Air, Benedict Canyon, Hollywood Hills, Los Feliz, Hancock Park, Pacific Palisades, Century City, and Brentwood.

Landmarks

Important landmarks in Los Angeles include Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Kodak Theatre, the Griffith Observatory, the Getty Center, the Getty Villa, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the Hollywood Sign, the Bradbury Building, Hollywood Boulevard, the Capitol Records Building, Los Angeles City Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, the Theme Building, the Watts Towers, Staples Center, Dodger Stadium, and La Placita Olvera/Olvera Street.

Culture

Los Angeles is often billed as the "Creative Capital of the World", due to the fact that one in every six of its residents works in a creative industry. According to the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation, "there are more artists, writers, filmmakers, actors, dancers and musicians living and working in Los Angeles than any other city at any time in the history of civilization."

Los Angeles is home to Hollywood, globally recognized as the epicenter of the motion picture industry. A testament to its preeminence in film, the city plays host to the annual Academy Awards, the oldest and one of the most prominent award ceremonies in the world. Finally, Los Angeles is home to the USC School of Cinematic Arts, the oldest film school in the United States.

The performing arts play a major role in Los Angeles' cultural identity. According to the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation, "there are more than 1,100 annual theatrical productions and 21 openings every week." The Los Angeles Music Center is "one of the three largest performing arts centers in the nation," with more than 1.3 million visitors per year. The Walt Disney Concert Hall, centerpiece of the Music Center, is home to the prestigious Los Angeles Philharmonic. Notable organizations such as Center Theatre Group, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and the Los Angeles Opera are also resident companies of the Music Center. Talent is locally cultivated at premier institutions such as the Colburn School and the USC Thornton School of Music.

Museums and galleries

There are 841 museums and art galleries in Los Angeles County. In fact, Los Angeles has more museums per capita than any other city in the world. Some of the notable museums are the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (the largest art museum in the Western United States), the Getty Center (part of the larger J. Paul Getty Trust, the world's wealthiest art institution), and the Museum of Contemporary Art. A significant number of art galleries are located on Gallery Row, and tens of thousands attend the monthly Downtown Art Walk there.

Media

The major daily English-language newspaper in the area is the ''Los Angeles Times''. ''La Opinión'' is the city's major daily Spanish-language paper, ''The Korea Times'' is the city's major daily Korean-language paper, and The Los Angeles Sentinel is the city's major African-American daily paper, boasting the largest Black readership in the Western United States. ''Investor's Business Daily'' is distributed from its L.A. corporate offices, which are headquartered in Playa Del Rey. There are also a number of smaller regional newspapers, alternative weeklies and magazines, including the ''Daily News'' (which focuses coverage on the San Fernando Valley), ''LA Weekly,'' ''Los Angeles CityBeat,'' ''L.A. Record'' (which focuses coverage on the music scene in the Greater Los Angeles Area), ''Los Angeles'' magazine, ''Los Angeles Business Journal,'' ''Los Angeles Daily Journal'' (legal industry paper), ''The Hollywood Reporter'' and ''Variety'' (entertainment industry papers), and ''Los Angeles Downtown News.'' In addition to the major papers, numerous local periodicals serve immigrant communities in their native languages, including Armenian, English, Korean, Persian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, and Arabic. Many cities adjacent to Los Angeles also have their own daily newspapers whose coverage and availability overlaps into certain Los Angeles neighborhoods. Examples include ''The Daily Breeze'' (serving the South Bay), and ''The Long Beach Press-Telegram.''

Los Angeles and New York City are the only two media markets to have seven VHF allocations assigned to them.

The city has major broadcast channels as well as three PBS stations. World TV operates on two channels and the area has several Spanish-language television networks. KTBN 40 is the flagship station of the religious Trinity Broadcasting Network, based out of Santa Ana. A variety of independent television stations also operate in the area.

Sports

Los Angeles is the home of the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball, the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League, the Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association, the Los Angeles D-Fenders, an NBA Development team owned by the Los Angeles Lakers, and the Los Angeles Sparks of the Women's National Basketball Association. Los Angeles is also home to the USC Trojans and the UCLA Bruins in the NCAA, both of which are Division I teams in the Pacific-12 Conference. The Los Angeles Galaxy and Club Deportivo Chivas USA of Major League Soccer are based in Carson.

Los Angeles is the second-largest city and television market in the United States, but has no NFL team. the nearest team is located in San Diego and are called the Chargers. At one time Los Angeles had two NFL teams, the Rams and the Raiders. Both left the city in 1995, with the Rams moving to St. Louis and the Raiders heading back to their original home of Oakland. Prior to 1995, the Rams called Memorial Coliseum home (1946–1979) and the Raiders played their home games at Memorial Coliseum from 1982 to 1994.

Since the franchise's departures the NFL as an organization, and individual NFL owners, have attempted to relocate a team to the city. Immediately following the 1995 NFL season, Seattle Seahawks owner Ken Behring went as far as packing up moving vans to start play in the Rose Bowl under a new team name and logo for the 1996 season. The State of Washington filed a lawsuit to prevent the move. In 2003, then-NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said that he thought that Los Angeles would get a new expansion team, a thirty-third franchise, after the choice of Houston over Los Angeles in the 2002 league expansion round. Despite these efforts, and the failure to build a new stadium for an NFL team, Los Angeles is still expected to return to the league through expansion or relocation. On August 9, 2011 the LA City Council approved plans to build Farmers Field, which will become home to an NFL team in the future. The stadium is expected to be completed by 2016.

Los Angeles has twice played host to the Summer Olympic Games, in 1932 and in 1984. When the tenth Olympic Games were hosted in 1932, the former 10th Street was renamed Olympic Blvd. Super Bowls I and VII were also held in the city as well as multiple FIFA World Cup games in 1994 including the final. Los Angeles will host the Special Olympics World Summer Games in 2015.

Los Angeles also boasts a number of sports venues, including Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles Coliseum, The Forum, Staples Center, a sports and entertainment complex that also hosts concerts and awards shows such as the Grammys. Staples Center also serves as the home arena for the Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA, the Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA, and the Los Angeles Kings of the NHL. It was also home to the Los Angeles Avengers of the original AFL, a team that did not participate in that league's ongoing revival.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of Major League Baseball and the Anaheim Ducks of the National Hockey League are in the Los Angeles media market and are based in Anaheim in Orange County. The Angels began as an expansion franchise team in Los Angeles in 1961 and played at Los Angeles' Wrigley Field and then Dodger Stadium before moving to Anaheim in 1966. The Ducks, who have played in Anaheim since their inception as an expansion team in , were originally owned by Disney and known as the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, after the popular Disney film. The team adopted its current name in , a year after Disney sold the franchise.

Religion

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles leads the largest archdiocese in the country. Cardinal Roger Mahony oversaw construction of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, which opened in September, 2002 in downtown Los Angeles. Construction of the cathedral marked a coming of age of the city's Catholic, heavily Latino community. There are numerous Catholic churches and parishes throughout Los Angeles.

With 621,000 Jews in the metropolitan area (490,000 in city proper), the region has the second largest population of Jews in the United States. Many of Los Angeles' Jews now live on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley, though Boyle Heights and Northwest Los Angeles once had large Jewish populations. Many varieties of Judaism are represented in the area, including Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Reconstructionist. The Breed Street Shul in East Los Angeles, built in 1923, was the largest synagogue west of Chicago in its early decades. (It is no longer a sacred space and is being converted to a museum and community center.) The Kabbalah Centre also has a presence in the city.

Los Angeles has had a rich and influential Protestant tradition. The first Protestant service in Los Angeles was a Methodist meeting held in a private home in 1850 and the oldest Protestant church still operating was founded in 1867. In the early 1900s the Bible Institute Of Los Angeles published the founding documents of the Christian Fundamentalist movement and the Azusa Street Revival launched Pentecostalism. Aimee Semple McPherson broadcast over the radio in the 1920s from the Angelus Temple, home of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel and its Life Pacific College. The Potter's House Christian Fellowship and Metropolitan Community Church also had their origins in the city. Billy Graham's first big success came in L.A. (in 1949) and notable ministers connected to the city include Robert P. Shuler, Charles E. Fuller, Gene Scott, Jesse Lee Peterson, and Solomon Burke. Important churches in the city include First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, Bel Air Presbyterian Church, First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles, West Angeles Church of God in Christ, Second Baptist Church, Crenshaw Christian Center, McCarty Memorial Christian Church, and First Congregational Church. The Los Angeles California Temple, the second largest temple operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is on Santa Monica Boulevard in the Westwood district of Los Angeles. Dedicated in 1956, it was the first Mormon temple built in California and it was the largest in the world when completed.

The Hollywood region of Los Angeles also has several significant headquarters, churches, and the Celebrity Center of Scientology.

Because of Los Angeles' large multi-ethnic population, a wide variety of faiths are practiced, including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Bahá'í, various Eastern Orthodox Churches, Sufism and others. Immigrants from Asia for example, have formed a number of significant Buddhist congregations making the city home to the greatest variety of Buddhists in the world.

Economy

The economy of Los Angeles is driven by international trade, entertainment (television, motion pictures, video games, recorded music), aerospace, technology, petroleum, fashion, apparel, and tourism. Los Angeles is also the largest manufacturing center in the western United States. The contiguous ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach together comprise the fifth-busiest port in the world and the most significant port in the Western Hemisphere and is vital to trade within the Pacific Rim. making it the third largest economic center in the world, after the Greater Tokyo Area and the New York-Newark-Bridgeport CSA. If counted as a country, the surrounding CSA has the 15^th largest economy in the world in terms of nominal GDP. Los Angeles has been classified an "Alpha world city" according to a 2010 study by a research group at Loughborough University in England.

The city is home to seven Fortune 500 companies. They are aerospace contractor Northrop Grumman, energy company Occidental Petroleum, healthcare provider Health Net, metals distributor Reliance Steel & Aluminum, engineering firm AECOM, real estate group CBRE Group and builder Tutor Perini.

Other companies headquartered in Los Angeles include California Pizza Kitchen, Capital Group, Capstone Turbine, The Cheesecake Factory, Cathay Bank, City National Bank, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, DeviantArt, Far East National Bank, Farmers Insurance Group, Fox Entertainment Group, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Guess?, Hanmi Bank, Herbalife, J2 Global Communications, The Jim Henson Company, KB Home, Korn/Ferry, Latham & Watkins, Mercury Insurance Group, Oaktree Capital Management, O’Melveny & Myers; Pabst Blue Ribbon, Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, Premier America, Premiere Radio Networks, Rentech, Roll International, Sunkist, The TCW Group, Tokyopop, Triton Media Group, United Online, and VCA Antech.

The metropolitan area is home to the headquarters of many companies who moved outside of the City of Los Angeles to escape its high taxes and high crime rate while keeping the benefits of remaining in close proximity. For example, Los Angeles charges a gross receipts tax based on a percentage of business revenue, while many neighboring cities charge only small flat fees.

The University of Southern California (USC) is the city's largest private sector employer and contributes $4 billion annually to the local economy.

According to the city's 2010 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top ten employers in the city as of 2009 are, in descending order, the City of Los Angeles, the County of Los Angeles, University of California, Los Angeles, University of Southern California, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente, Fox Entertainment Group, Farmers Insurance Group, TeamOne,and Northrop Grumman.

Education

Colleges and universities

There are three public universities located within the city limits: California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA), California State University, Northridge (CSUN) and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Private colleges in the city include the American Film Institute Conservatory, Alliant International University, Syracuse University (Los Angeles Campus), American InterContinental University, American Jewish University, The American Musical and Dramatic Academy – Los Angeles campus, Antioch University's Los Angeles campus, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising's Los Angeles campus (FIDM), Los Angeles Film School, Loyola Marymount University (LMU is also the parent university of Loyola Law School located in Los Angeles), Marymount College, Mount St. Mary's College, National University of California, Occidental College ("Oxy"), Otis College of Art and Design (Otis), Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), Southwestern Law School, and University of Southern California (USC).

The community college system consists of nine campuses governed by the trustees of the Los Angeles Community College District: East Los Angeles College (ELAC), Los Angeles City College (LACC), Los Angeles Harbor College, Los Angeles Mission College, Los Angeles Pierce College, Los Angeles Valley College (LAVC), Los Angeles Southwest College, Los Angeles Trade-Technical College and West Los Angeles College.

Schools and libraries

Los Angeles Unified School District serves almost all of the city of Los Angeles, as well as several surrounding communities, with a student population around 800,000. After Proposition 13 was approved in 1978, urban school districts had considerable trouble with funding. LAUSD has become known for its underfunded, overcrowded and poorly maintained campuses, although its 162 Magnet schools help compete with local private schools. Several small sections of Los Angeles are in the Las Virgenes Unified School District. Los Angeles County Office of Education operates the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. The Los Angeles Public Library system operates 72 public libraries in the city. Enclaves of unincorporated areas are served by the County of Los Angeles Public Library, many are within walking distance to City of Los Angeles residents.

Transportation

Freeways

The city and the rest of the Los Angeles metropolitan area are served by an extensive network of freeways and highways. The Texas Transportation Institute, which publishes an annual Urban Mobility Report, ranked Los Angeles road traffic as the most congested in the United States in 2005 as measured by annual delay per traveler. The average traveler in Los Angeles experienced 72 hours of traffic delay per year according to the study. Los Angeles was followed by San Francisco/Oakland, Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, (each with 60 hours of delay). Despite the congestion in the city, the mean travel time for commuters in Los Angeles is shorter than other major cities, including New York City, Philadelphia and Chicago. Los Angeles' mean travel time for work commutes in 2006 was 29.2 minutes, similar to those of San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Among the major highways that connect LA to the rest of the nation include Interstate 5, which runs south through San Diego to Tijuana in Mexico and north through Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle to the Canadian border; Interstate 10, the southernmost east–west, coast-to-coast Interstate Highway in the United States, going to Jacksonville, Florida; and U.S. Route 101, which heads to the California Central Coast, San Francisco, the Redwood Empire, and the Oregon and Washington coasts.

Transit systems

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and other agencies operate an extensive system of bus lines, as well as subway and light rail lines across Los Angeles County, with a combined monthly ridership (measured in individual boardings) of 38.8 million as of September, 2011. The majority of this (30.5 million) is taken up by the city's bus system, the second busiest in the country. The subway and light rail combined average the remaining roughly 8.2 million boardings per month. In 2005, 10.2% of Los Angeles commuters rode some form of public transportation.

The city's subway system is the ninth busiest in the United States and its light rail system is the country's second busiest. The rail system includes the Red and Purple subway lines, as well as the Gold, Blue, and Green light rail lines. The first phase of the Expo Line is scheduled to open on April 28, 2012. The Metro Orange Line is a bus rapid transit line with stops and frequency similar to those of a light rail. The city is also central to the commuter rail system Metrolink, which links Los Angeles to all neighboring counties as well as many suburbs.

Besides the rail service provided by Metrolink and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Los Angeles is served by inter-city passenger trains from Amtrak. The main rail station in the city is Union Station just north of Downtown.

Airports

The main Los Angeles airport is Los Angeles International Airport . The sixth busiest commercial airport in the world and the third busiest in the United States, LAX handled over 61 million passengers and 2 million tons of cargo in 2006. LAX is a hub for United Airlines

Other major nearby commercial airports include: LA/Ontario International Airport, owned by the city of Los Angeles; serves the Inland Empire. Bob Hope Airport, formerly known as ''Burbank Airport''; serves the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys Long Beach Airport, serves the Long Beach/Harbor area John Wayne Airport of Orange County.

One of the world's busiest general-aviation airports is also located in Los Angeles, Van Nuys Airport .

Seaports

The Port of Los Angeles is located in San Pedro Bay in the San Pedro neighborhood, approximately south of Downtown. Also called Los Angeles Harbor and WORLDPORT LA, the port complex occupies of land and water along of waterfront. It adjoins the separate Port of Long Beach.

The sea ports of the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach together make up the ''Los Angeles/Long Beach Harbor''. Together, both ports are the fifth busiest container port in the world, with a trade volume of over 14.2 million TEU's in 2008. Singly, the Port of Los Angeles is the busiest container port in the United States and the largest cruise ship center on the West Coast of the United States – The Port of Los Angeles' World Cruise Center served about 800,000 passengers in 2009.

There are also smaller, non-industrial harbors along Los Angeles' coastline. Safety is provided at the only beach controlled by Los Angeles City by the highly-trained Los Angeles City lifeguards.

The port includes four bridges: the Vincent Thomas Bridge, Henry Ford Bridge, Gerald Desmond Bridge, and Commodore Schuyler F. Heim Bridge.

Passenger ferry service from San Pedro to the city of Avalon on Santa Catalina Island is provided by Catalina Express.

Demographics

Los Angeles is home to people from more than 140 countries speaking 224 different identified languages. Ethnic enclaves like Chinatown, Historic Filipinotown, Koreatown, Little Armenia, Little Ethiopia, Tehrangeles, Little Tokyo, and Thai Town provide examples of the polyglot character of Los Angeles.

2010 Census

The 2010 United States Census reported that Los Angeles had a population of 3,792,621. The population density was 7,544.6 people per square mile (2,913.0/km²). The racial makeup of Los Angeles included: 1,888,158 Whites (49.8%), 365,118 African Americans (9.6%), 28,215 Native Americans (0.7%), 426,959 Asians (11.3%), 5,577 Pacific Islanders (0.1%), 902,959 from other races (23.8%), and 175,635 (4.6%) from two or more races. Mexicans make up the largest ethnic group of Latinos at 31.9% of Los Angeles' population, followed by Salvadorans (6.0%), Guatemalans (3.6%), Hondurans (0.6%), Nicaraguans (0.4%), Puerto Rican (0.4%), Peruvians (0.4%), Cubans (0.4%), Colombians (0.3%), Argentines (0.2%), and Ecuadorians (0.2%). The Latino population is spread throughout the city of Los Angeles and its metropolitan area but it is most heavily concentrated in the East Los Angeles region, which has a long established Mexican American and Central American community.

The largest Asian ethnic groups are Filipinos (3.2%) and Koreans (2.9%), which have their own established ethnic enclaves−Koreatown and Historic Filipinotown. Chinese people, which make up 1.8% of Los Angeles' population, are found mostly outside of Los Angeles city limits and in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles County, but have a sizable presence in the city, notably in Chinatown. Chinatown is also home to many Thais and Cambodians, which make up 0.3% and 0.1% of Los Angeles' population, respectively. Japanese comprise 0.9% of L.A.'s population, and have an established Little Tokyo, and Vietnamese make up 0.5% of Los Angeles' population. L.A. has a rather small South Asian population−Indians make up 0.9% of the city's population.

African Americans have the largest establishment in South Los Angeles, remarkably within the neighborhoods of Crenshaw and Watts. However, since the 1980s, there has been a large influx of immigration from Mexico and Central America which have outnumbered the blacks in South Los Angeles.

The Census reported that 3,708,020 people (97.8% of the population) lived in households, 58,186 (1.5%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 26,415 (0.7%) were institutionalized.

The age distribution was 874,525 people (23.1%) under 18, 434,478 people (11.5%) from 18 to 24, 1,209,367 people (31.9%) from 25 to 44, 877,555 people (23.1%) from 45 to 64, and 396,696 people (10.5%) who were 65 or older. Owing to geography, heavy reliance on automobiles, and the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex, Los Angeles suffers from air pollution in the form of smog. The Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley are susceptible to atmospheric inversion, which holds in the exhausts from road vehicles, airplanes, locomotives, shipping, manufacturing, and other sources. The smog season lasts from May to October. Unlike other large cities that rely on rain to clear smog, Los Angeles gets only of rain each year: pollution accumulates over many consecutive days. Issues of air quality in Los Angeles and other major cities led to the passage of early national environmental legislation, including the Clean Air Act. More recently, the state of California has led the nation in working to limit pollution by mandating low-emission vehicles. Smog is expected to continue to drop in the coming years due to aggressive steps to reduce it, electric and hybrid cars, improvements in mass transit, and other pollution-reducing measures.

The number of Stage 1 smog alerts in Los Angeles has declined from over 100 per year in the 1970s to almost zero in the new millennium. Despite improvement, the 2006 and 2007 annual reports of the American Lung Association ranked the city as the most polluted in the country with short-term particle pollution and year-round particle pollution. In 2008, the city was ranked the second most polluted and again had the highest year-round particulate pollution. In addition, the groundwater is increasingly threatened by MTBE from gas stations and perchlorate from rocket fuel. The city met its goal of providing 20 percent of the city's power from renewable sources in 2010.

Neighborhood councils

Voters created Neighborhood Councils in the Charter Reform of 1999. First proposed by City Council member Joel Wachs in 1996, they were designed to promote public participation in government and make it more responsive to local needs.

The councils cover districts that are not necessarily identical to the traditional neighborhoods of Los Angeles.

Almost ninety neighborhood councils (NCs) are certified and all "stakeholders"—meaning anyone who lives, works or owns property in a neighborhood—may vote for members of the councils' governing bodies. Some council bylaws allow other people with a stake in the community to cast ballots as well.

The councils are official government bodies and so their governing bodies and committees must abide by California's Brown Act, which governs the meetings of deliberative assemblies.

The first notable concern of the neighborhood councils collectively was the opposition by some of them in March 2004 to an 18% increase in water rates by the city's Department of Water and Power. This led the City Council to approve only a limited increase pending independent review. More recently, some of the councils petitioned the City Council in summer 2006 to allow them to introduce ideas for legislative action, but the City Council put off a decision.

The neighborhood councils have been allocated $45,000 each per year for administration, outreach and approved neighborhood projects.

Crime

Like most American cities, Los Angeles has been experiencing significant decline in crime since the mid-1990s, and reached a 50-year low in 2009 with 314 homicides. Antonio Villaraigosa is a member of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition.

In 2009, Los Angeles reported 314 homicides, which corresponds to a rate of 7.85 (per 100,000 population)—a major decrease from 1993, when the all time homicide rate of over 21.1 (per 100,000 population) was reported for the year. This included 15 officer-involved shootings. One shooting led to the death of a SWAT team member, Randal Simmons, the first in LAPD's history.

The Los Angeles crime family dominated organized crime in the city during the Prohibition era and reached its peak during the 1940s and 1950s as part of the American Mafia but has gradually declined since then with the rise of various black and Hispanic gangs.

According to the Los Angeles Police Department, the city is home to 45,000 gang members, organized into 450 gangs. Among them are the Crips, Bloods, Sureños, Mara Salvatrucha and 18th Street. This has led to the city being referred to as the "Gang Capital of America".

Sister cities

Los Angeles has 25 sister cities, listed chronologically by year joined: Eilat, Israel (1959) Nagoya, Japan (1959) Salvador, Bahia, Brazil (1962) Bordeaux, France (1964) Berlin, Germany (1967) Lusaka, Zambia (1968) Mexico City, Mexico (1969) Auckland City, New Zealand (1971) Busan, South Korea (1971) Mumbai, Maharashtra, India (1972) Tehran, Iran (1972) Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China (1979) Guangzhou, People's Republic of China (1981) Athens, Greece (1984) Saint Petersburg, Russia (1984) Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (1986) Giza, Egypt (1989) Jakarta, Indonesia (1990) Kaunas, Lithuania (1991) Makati, Philippines (1992) Split, Croatia (1993) San Salvador, El Salvador (2005) Beirut, Lebanon (2006) Ischia, Campania, Italy (2006) Yerevan, Armenia (2007) Faisalabad, Pakistan (2009)

Los Angeles also has an exchange partnership with Tel Aviv, Israel.

In addition, Los Angeles has the following "friendship cities".: London, England, United Kingdom Łódź, Poland Manchester, England, United Kingdom

See also

1992 Los Angeles riots

East Los Angeles (region)

Largest cities in the Americas

Largest cities in Southern California

List of museums in Greater Los Angeles County

List of museums in Los Angeles, California

List of people from Los Angeles

List of tallest buildings in Los Angeles

Los Angeles in popular culture

National Register of Historic Places listings in Los Angeles, California

References

Further reading

;General

;Architecture and urban theory (available online)

;Race relations

;LGBT

;Environment

;Art and literature

External links

City of Los Angeles Official Website

ExperienceLA.com

Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau

Los Angeles website

Los Angeles Then and Now – slideshow by ''Life magazine'' }}

Category:Article Feedback 5 Additional Articles Category:Cities in Los Angeles County, California Category:Communities on U.S. Route 66 Category:County seats in California Category:Incorporated cities and towns in California Category:Populated coastal places in California Category:Populated places established in 1781 Category:Populated places in the United States with Hispanic plurality populations Category:Port settlements in the United States Category:Host cities of the Summer Olympic Games

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Coordinates	28°36′50″N77°12′32″N
name	Blake Griffin
height ft	6
height in	10
weight lb	251
team	Los Angeles Clippers
number	32
position	Power Forward
birth date	March 16, 1989
birth place	Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
high school	Oklahoma Christian School (Edmond, Oklahoma)
college	Oklahoma
nationality	American
draft round	1
draft pick	1
draft team	Los Angeles Clippers
draft year	2009
career start	2009
years1	–present | team1 Los Angeles Clippers
highlights	NBA Rookie of the Year () NBA All-Star () NBA All-Rookie First Team () NBA Slam Dunk Contest Champion () Big 12 Player of the Year (2009) John R. Wooden Award (2009) Naismith College Player of the Year (2009) AP National Player of the Year (2009) Oscar Robertson Trophy (2009) Adolph Rupp Trophy (2009) NABC Player of the Year (2009) }}

Blake Austin Griffin (born March 16, 1989) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Griffin had a renowned high school career at Oklahoma Christian School, winning state titles each of his four years under his father who was the head coach. He played college basketball for the University of Oklahoma Sooners and was awarded numerous accolades in his second year including the Naismith College Player of the Year, Oscar Robertson Trophy and the John Wooden Award. Griffin left college after two seasons to enter the 2009 NBA Draft where he was selected first overall by the Clippers. He missed the entire 2009–10 season due to surgery on his broken left kneecap, which he injured during the final pre-season game. He made his NBA debut as a rookie the following season and was selected as an All-Star, won the 2011 NBA Slam Dunk Contest and was named the NBA Rookie of the Year.

Early years

Childhood

Griffin was born on March 16, 1989 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Tommy and Gail Griffin. His father was a basketball center and track standout at NAIA Northwestern Oklahoma State University. Griffin and his older brother, Taylor Griffin, were home-schooled by their mother from first grade until Taylor was in the tenth grade and Blake was in eighth. Growing up, he was good friends with Sam Bradford of the St. Louis Rams and played on the same Athletes First AAU basketball team along with Xavier Henry of the Memphis Grizzlies. Griffin’s parents owned a trophy company that Bradford’s father would use and Bradford’s father owned a gym where Griffin and his brother Taylor played basketball. Apart from basketball, he also played first baseman in baseball, and football as a wide receiver, safety and a tight end.

High school

Griffin and his brother Taylor attended Oklahoma Christian School for high school where they played under their father who was the head coach. They played together during the 2003–04 and 2004–05 high school seasons, winning two state high school basketball championships together. In his freshmen year, the Oklahoma Christian Saints posted a perfect 29–0 season and won the Class 3A boys state championship game held at the State Fair Arena against Riverside. In his sophomore year, the Saints repeated as Class 3A state champions and finished the season with a 24–2 record, while averaging 13.6 points per game in what was his final high school season with his brother. He was named to the Little All-City All-State team and his brother was named ''The Oklahoman'' Player of the Year. After the season, his brother went off to play college basketball for the University of Oklahoma. During the summer of 2005, Griffin played against Kevin Durant and Ty Lawson while playing for the Athletes First AAU team.

As a junior, he averaged 21.7 points, 12.5 rebounds, and 4.9 assists, and led the Saints to the Class 2A championship game, beating Washington High School for a third straight state championship and was named the state tournament MVP. The team finished 27–1 and Griffin was named ''The Oklahoman'' Player of the Year and to the ''Tulsa World'' Boys All-State First Team. His play attracted the attention of the new basketball head coach for the Oklahoma Sooners, Jeff Capel, who first heard of Griffin through his brother Taylor. In the spring of 2006, Capel saw Griffin play for the first time and was impressed with his combination of size, strength and athleticism. Capel recruited Griffin because he felt he was the player he needed to rebuild his tenure with the Oklahoma men's basketball program. Griffin had been considering Duke, Kansas, North Carolina and Texas, but his brother eventually sold him on joining Oklahoma when he raved about the direction of the Sooners and the chance to play together again for his home state.

Griffin committed to Oklahoma before the start of his senior season and averaged 26.8 points, 15.1 rebounds, 4.9 assists and 2.9 blocks per game as a senior while leading the team to a 26–3 record. In a game against Oklahoma City Southeast, Griffin had his best game of the season with 41 points, 28 rebounds, and 10 assists. On March 10, 2007, he played his final high school game in the state title game against Pawnee High School. He registered 22 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists and 2 blocks, as the Saints defeated Pawnee 81–50, winning their fourth straight state title. He was named the Class 2A state tournament MVP for the second consecutive year after averaging 26.6 points per game in the tournament, winning its three games by an average of 30.3 points. During his four-year run, the Oklahoma Christian Saints posted a 106–6 overall record.

Griffin was named the Player of the Year by both the ''Tulsa World'' and ''The Oklahoman'' and named a Oklahoma Boys All-State First Team, EA Sports All-American Second Team and a ''Parade'' Third Team All-American. He was ranked as the nation's #13 high school senior by HoopScoop, #20 by scout.com and #23 by rivals.com, and as the country's third-best power forward by HoopScoop, sixth by rivals.com and the seventh by scout.com. Additionally, he was the Gatorade Oklahoma Player of the Year and was selected to the McDonald's All-American and Jordan Brand All-America teams. At the McDonald's All-American game in Louisville, Kentucky he won the Powerade Jam Fest slam dunk contest.

College career

Griffin was one of the highest rated and most decorated recruits ever at Oklahoma. As a freshman at Oklahoma, he averaged 14.7 points and 9.1 rebounds in 28.4 minutes per game and led the Sooners to a 23–12 record. He ranked ninth in scoring, fourth in rebounding and third in field goal percentage in Big 12. In a game against the Kansas Jayhawks, he suffered a sprained medial collateral ligament (MCL) in his left knee five minutes into the Sooners game. Less than two months after injuring his left knee, he injured his right knee in a home victory against Texas A&M;. The injury this time was torn cartilage, and he had arthroscopic surgery on March 2, 2008. He missed the following game, a victory over in-state rival Oklahoma State Cowboys, but was back on the court a week after the injury with 14 points and 8 rebounds in 28 minutes versus the Missouri Tigers, a win for the Sooners on their home floor. He was a first-team all-district pick by the USBWA and NABC, and was named to the Big 12 All-Rookie Team and to the first-team All-Big 12 selection by league coaches and Associated Press. He became the first Sooner to make the conference All-Rookie team since Wayman Tisdale in 1983 for the Big Eight Conference. He was expected to be a lottery pick in the 2008 NBA Draft but decided to return to college for a second season to give himself time to mature physically and make Oklahoma a contender for the NCAA championship.

In his sophomore season, the Sooners started out the season winning their first 12 games before falling to the Arkansas Razorbacks. In the third game of the season against the Davidson Wildcats, he scored 25 points and grabbed 21 rebounds, after which he scored 35 points and 21 rebounds against Gardner–Webb, becoming the first player in Big 12 history to record back-to-back games of at least 20 points and 20 rebounds. This earned him three consecutive Big 12 player of the week honor and finished the season with a record-tying six player of the week honors. In a home victory against the Texas Tech Red Raiders, he set career bests for both points and rebounds with 40 points and 23 rebounds, becoming the only player in Big 12 history and the third player in the history of the University of Oklahoma men's basketball program to score 40 points and get 20 rebounds in the same game, joining Wayman Tisdale (61 points and 22 rebounds in 1983) and Alvan Adams (43 points and 25 rebounds in 1975).

On February 21, he received a concussion in a loss to the Texas Longhorns, when he caught an inadvertent shot to the face from the open hand of Texas center Dexter Pittman. He sat out the second half during the Sooners loss with a bloody nose. It was the Sooners' first loss of their conference schedule for the season. After sitting out the next game, a loss to Kansas Jayhawks, he was cleared by the medical staff and returned a week later to get 20 points and 19 rebounds in a victory over the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Oklahoma finished second in the conference with a 13–3 record but fell short in the first game of the Big 12 Tournament to the Oklahoma State Cowboys. In the "Big Dance", Oklahoma was seeded No. 2 in the South Region with a 27-5 record. In the second-round win over the Michigan Wolverines, he scored 33 points and grabbed 17 rebounds, just the second player in the 2000s decade with at least 30 points and 15 rebounds in the NCAA tournament. However, the Sooners lost to the North Carolina Tar Heels in the South Regional final.

Griffin averaged 22.7 points, 14.4 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game during the regular season and earned All-American First Team honors. He led the Big 12 in scoring and rebounds, and recorded at least 20 points and 15 rebounds 15 times, which is a Big 12 record. He also set school and Big 12 single-season records for most rebounds (504), rebounding average (14.4), and double-doubles (30), and his free throw attempts (324) were the most by a Sooner in a single-season. With 30 double-doubles during the season, he was one short of the NCAA record of 31 set by David Robinson in 1986–1987. His total of 504 rebounds were the most in a season by an NCAA Division I player since Indiana State's Larry Bird had 505 in 1978–79 and his rebounding average of 14.4 was the highest since Wake Forest's Tim Duncan averaged 14.7 in 1996–97.

For his sophomore year performance, Griffin swept all six of the national player of the year awards. He was a unanimous choice by voters in all nine geographical districts for the Oscar Robertson Trophy and was named Associated Press College Basketball Player of the Year, receiving 66 of the 71 national media panel members' votes. Griffin was announced as the winner of the prestigious Naismith College Player of the Year on April 5 in Detroit. Three days after announcing that he would turn pro, he won the John Wooden Award as college basketball's top player. He became the first Oklahoma player in school history to win the Naismith Award, Oscar Robertson Trophy, Adolph Rupp Trophy, John Wooden Award and the Associated Press player of the year. He was also named Player of the Year by the Big 12, Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News and FoxSports.com. When combined with Sam Bradford's Heisman Trophy, the University of Oklahoma became the first school to have a winner in both top basketball and football individual awards in the same year.

College statistics

33 35 68

College !! Year	! GP !! GS !! MIN !! PPG !! RPG !! APG !! SPG !! BPG !! FG%!! FT%!! 3P%
Oklahoma	2007–08	33	|	28.4	14.7	9.1	1.8	1.0	.85	.568	.589	.0
Oklahoma	2008–09	35	|	33.3	22.7	14.4	2.3	1.1	1.2	.646	.590	.375
Career	68	|	31.4	18.8	11.8	2.1	1.0	1.05	.618	.589	.300

NBA career

2009–10: Injured season

On April 7, 2009, Griffin announced that he would give up his final two years of eligibility and declared for the NBA Draft after his sophomore year. A press conference announcing his decision was aired nationally on ESPNews. He was selected as the first overall pick by the Los Angeles Clippers in the 2009 NBA Draft. Griffin played for the Clippers' Summer League Team and was named Summer League MVP. In their final preseason game, he injured his kneecap as he landed after a dunk. The day before the 2009–10 season started it was confirmed that Griffin had a stress fracture in his left knee, delaying his NBA debut for seven weeks. After resting the stress fracture for several weeks, tests revealed that his knee was not recovering properly. In January 2010, Griffin had surgery on his broken left kneecap, missing the entire 2009–10 season. In the off season Griffin spent a great deal of time working out with a San Francisco-based trainer.

2010–11: Rookie of the Year

Since he missed the entire 2009–10 season, Griffin was still considered a rookie during the 2010–11 season. In his debut for the Clippers against the Portland Trail Blazers, Griffin scored 20 points and registered 14 rebounds. He set a franchise record for most consecutive double-doubles with 23 in a home game against the Golden State Warriors. His streak of consecutive double-doubles ended at 27 games on January 19 in a win against the Minnesota Timberwolves where he scored 29 points and grabbed 8 rebounds. On January 17, 2011 against the Indiana Pacers, Griffin scored a career-high and set a Clippers record for most points scored by a rookie with 47 points and grabbed 14 rebounds. He became the first rookie to have two 40+ games in his rookie season since Allen Iverson during the 1996–97 season.

Griffin was voted to the 2011 NBA All-Star Game by coaches as a reserve on the Western Conference squad, becoming the first rookie to play in the All-Star game since Yao Ming in 2003 and the first rookie voted to the game by coaches since Tim Duncan in 1998. He also participated in the 2011 Rookie Challenge and won the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest during the All-Star break. On March 23, 2011, in a double overtime win over the Washington Wizards, Griffin recorded his first career triple-double, 33 points, 17 rebounds, and 10 assists, and recorded his second triple-double with 31 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists, in the final game of the season against the Memphis Grizzlies.

During the season, he captured all six of the Western Conference T-Mobile Rookie of the Month, the first time a rookie has swept an entire season of Rookie of the Month awards since Chris Paul during the 2005–06 season. He played in all 82 regular season games and became the first rookie to average at least 20 points and 10 rebounds since Elton Brand did it in the 1999–00 season. He led all rookies in points, rebounds and double-doubles, earning him the Rookie of the Year award, and was the first unanimous winner for the award since David Robinson in 1990. He was also the only unanimous selection to the All-Rookie First Team.

Player profile

Standing at , Griffin plays power forward. In his rookie year, he averaged 22.5 points, 12.1 rebounds, and 3.8 assists per game. He has established himself as a difficult player to guard, especially when coming off the pick and roll. He is often able to get to the free throw line but like many power forwards and centers has a relatively low free throw percentage. Griffin has also become well known for his dunking ability, winning the 2011 Slam Dunk Contest.

NBA career statistics

Regular season

|- | style="text-align:left;"| 2010–11 | style="text-align:left;"| L.A. Clippers | 82 || 82 || 38.0 || .506 || .292 || .642 || 12.1 || 3.8 || .8 || .5 || 22.5 |- | style="text-align:left;"| Career | style="text-align:left;"| | 82 || 82 || 38.0 || .506 || .292 || .642 || 12.1 || 3.8 || .8 || .5 || 22.5 |- | style="text-align:left;"| All-Star | style="text-align:left;"| | 1 || 0 || 15.0 || .667 || .000 || .000 || 5.0 || 5.0 || 0.0 || 0.0 || 8.0

Career Highs

Regular season

! Stat	! High	! Opponent	! Date
Points	47	vs. Indiana
Offensive Rebounds	9	vs. Portland
Defensive Rebounds	16	vs. Detroit
Total Rebounds	18	vs. Detroit
Total Rebounds	18	at Philadelphia
Total Rebounds	18	vs. Houston
Total Rebounds	18	vs. Denver
Total Rebounds	18	at Portland
Total Rebounds	18	vs. Golden State
Assists	10	vs. Washington
Assists	10	vs. Memphis

Awards and honors

NBA

NBA Rookie of the Year: 2011

NBA All-Star: 2011

NBA Slam Dunk Champion: 2011

NBA All-Rookie First Team: 2011

Western Conference Rookie of the Month: November 2010, December 2010, January 2011, February 2011, March 2011, April 2011

College

2009 Naismith College Player of the Year

2009 John Wooden Award

2009 Adolph Rupp Trophy 2009 Oscar Robertson Trophy 2009 AP All-American First Team 2009 ''Sports Illustrated'' Player of the Year

2009 AP National Player of the Year

2009 ''Sporting News'' Player of the Year Phillips 66 All-Big 12 Men's Basketball Awards

2009 Big 12 Player of the Year

2009 All-Big 12 First Team

*2008 All-Big 12 First Team

*2008 Big 12 All-Rookie Team

High school

Class 3A State Championship: 2004, 2005

Class 2A State Championship: 2006, 2007 Class 2A Tournament MVP: 2006, 2007

''The Oklahoman'' Player of the Year: 2006, 2007

2007 McDonald's All-American

2007 McDonald's All-American Slam Dunk Champion

2007 ''Parade'' All-America Third Team

2007 ''Tulsa World'' Player of the Year

2007 Oklahoma Boys All-State First Team

2006 ''Tulsa World'' Boys All-State First Team

2005 Little All-City All-State Team

Off the court

Griffin resides in Manhattan Beach, California.

Endorsements

Griffin appeared on the cover of ''NCAA Basketball 10'' video game by EA Sports, and in an advertising campaign for Subway restaurants. He has appeared in commercials for Kia automobiles and AT&T;, and appeared in ''Sports Show with Norm Macdonald'' with teammate DeAndre Jordan. In April 2011, Panini America signed Griffin to an exclusive long-term deal that will feature his autographs and memorabilia in Panini products. Panini initially signed him to a one year deal, which expired in 2010. He has also signed with Vizio to pitch digital TVs and other products. In April 2011 he appeared in a trailer for the video game ''Rage''.

Philanthropy

He started a fundraiser called Dunking for Dollars, in which he donates $100 to fight childhood obesity for every dunk he makes. The Kia sedan that Griffin jumped over to win the Slam Dunk Contest will be donated for a charity auction on AutoTrader.com with proceeds benefiting Stand Up to Cancer. The auction started May 5, 2011 and runs through May 15. Stand Up to Cancer also has a fund-raising site called Team Blake, in honor of his close friend Wilson Holloway, who died after a three-year fight with Hodgkin's lymphoma.

See also

2009 NCAA Men's Basketball All-Americans

List of first overall NBA draft picks

List of NCAA Division I men's basketball season rebounding leaders

References

External links

Official Site

Statistics

Blake Griffin at ESPN.com

Profiles

Scout.com Profile

Rivals.com Profile

NBADraft.net Profile

DraftExpress Profile

Category:1989 births Category:Living people Category:American basketball players Category:African American basketball players Category:Basketball players from Oklahoma Category:NBA Slam Dunk Contest champions Category:Oklahoma Sooners men's basketball players Category:McDonald's High School All-Americans Category:Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball) Category:People from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Category:Power forwards (basketball) Category:Los Angeles Clippers draft picks Category:Los Angeles Clippers players Category:American baseball players

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Coordinates	28°36′50″N77°12′32″N
position	Power forward/Center
height ft	7
height in	0
weight lb	250
number	16
team	Los Angeles Lakers
nationality	Spanish
birth date	July 06, 1980
birth place	Barcelona, Spain
draft round	1
draft pick	3
draft year	2001
draft team	Atlanta Hawks
career start	1998
years1	1998–2001 | team1 Barcelona (Spain)
years2	– | team2 Memphis Grizzlies
years3	–present | team3 Los Angeles Lakers
highlights	2× NBA Champion (2009, 2010) NBA Rookie of the Year () 4× NBA All-Star (2006, 2009–2011) All-NBA Second Team () 2× All-NBA Third Team (–) NBA All-Rookie First Team () FIBA World Championship MVP (2006) EuroBasket MVP (2009) Spanish King's Cup MVP (2001) Spanish League Finals MVP (2001) All-Euroleague Second Team (2001) 7× European Player of the Year * 2× FIBA Europe Player of the Year (2008–2009) * 2× Mister Europa Player of the Year (2004, 2009) * 3× Euroscar Player of the Year (2008–2010) }}

}}

Pau Gasol Sáez () (born July 6, 1980) is a Spanish professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He was born to Marisa Sáez and Agustí Gasol, and he spent his childhood in Spain. Gasol was drafted by the Atlanta Hawks in the 2001 NBA Draft, but his rights were traded to the Memphis Grizzlies, with whom he won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award. He currently holds the Memphis Grizzlies franchise records for career games played, minutes played, field goals made and attempted, free throws made and attempted, offensive, defensive, and total rebounds, blocked shots, turnovers, and points. After seven seasons with the team, Gasol was traded to the Lakers on February 1, 2008. His younger brother, Marc Gasol, who was involved in that trade, is also a professional basketball player for the Memphis Grizzlies of the NBA.

Early career

FC Barcelona (1998–2001)

Pau Gasol was born in Barcelona. He began playing basketball with his school team called Alvirne, and he eventually signed with Cornellà. When he was sixteen, he began playing for Barcelona's junior team. He also won both the 1998 Albert Schweitzer Tournament and the 1998 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship. After moving to the senior team of Barcelona, Gasol played just 25 total minutes in the Spanish ACB League 1998–99 season, and averaged 13.7 minutes per game in the ACB the next year. However, in his final season in the ACB, Gasol averaged 12.4 points and 5.8 rebounds in 24.7 minutes per game. Barcelona was victorious in the Spanish National Cup championship game in 2001, and Gasol was named Most Valuable Player. After entering the NBA Draft, Gasol was selected third overall in the first round in the 2001 NBA Draft by the Atlanta Hawks, who traded his draft rights to the Memphis Grizzlies in exchange for Shareef Abdur-Rahim.

NBA career

Memphis Grizzlies (2001–2008)

In Gasol's first season with the Grizzlies, he won the Rookie of the Year Award, and was named to the All-Rookie first team. He averaged 17.6 points and 8.9 rebounds per game, and was also the only team member to play in all 82 games that season. Gasol led the team in scoring (19.0 points per game) in his second year with the team, and for the second year in a row, played in all 82 games. Gasol missed the first game of his career, during his third year, with a foot injury on April 5, 2004, which snapped his string of 240 consecutive games played. He grabbed the 1,500th rebound of his career on November 12, 2003, against the Orlando Magic and scored his 3,000th career point on October 31, 2003, against the Boston Celtics. Despite having 22 points in Game 4 against the San Antonio Spurs, the highest by a Memphis players in the playoffs, his team was eliminated in the first round, not winning a single game against San Antonio. This was both the Grizzlies and Gasol's first trip to the NBA Playoffs. He scored 31 points and blocked four shots on January 11, 2005, against the Indiana Pacers to earn 5,000 points and 500 blocks in his career, becoming the 10th fastest player to reach 5,000 points/500 blocks since 1973–74. He also helped his team make it to the playoffs for the second time in his career, but they were eliminated in the first round and did not win a single game against the Phoenix Suns.

In his fifth year with the team, he became the franchise’s all-time leading rebounder on March 24 against the New York Knicks when he grabbed his 3,072nd rebound in a Grizzlies uniform. He made 29 consecutive free throw attempts from January 24 to January 28, tying the second best mark in Grizzlies history, including two straight games going 12–12 from the line, tying the best single-game mark in franchise history. Gasol and the Grizzlies returned to the playoffs for the third time in his and his team's history. Once again, they were eliminated in the first round and did not win a single game against the Dallas Mavericks.

On February 9, 2006, making his first appearance, Gasol was selected to play in the 2006 NBA All-Star Game in Houston, Texas as a reserve center for the Western Conference. At the time, he was one of four players ranked among Western Conference forwards in the top ten in points, rebounds, assists and blocked shots. He was the first Spanish basketball player as well as the first Grizzlies player to ever make it to the All-Star Game.

Gasol missed the first 23 games of the 2006-07 NBA season due to a broken foot suffered near the end of Spain's semifinal win over Argentina in the 2006 FIBA World Championship. He would go on to be named Most Valuable Player of the tournament, which Spain won. He had a season-high 34 points (most by a Grizzly that season), and eight rebounds and tied a career-high and franchise record with eight blocks on January 29 against the Sacramento Kings, and surpassed Shareef Abdur-Rahim as the franchise's all-time leader in free throw attempts on January 31 against the Dallas Mavericks. He became the all-time franchise leader in field goals made on February 6 against the Houston Rockets, and became the all-time franchise leader in minutes played on February 7 at Dallas. He surpassed Shareef Abdur-Rahim (7,801 points) as the Grizzlies' all-time leading scorer on March 7, 2007, against the Toronto Raptors (7,809 points at the time). On January 24, 2007, Gasol recorded his second career triple-double against the hosting Utah Jazz, garnering 17 points, 13 rebounds, and 12 assists. He also registered 2 blocks and one steal.

Los Angeles Lakers (2008–present)

On February 1, 2008, Gasol was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers along with a 2010 second round draft pick for Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Aaron McKie, the rights to Marc Gasol (Pau's younger brother), and 2008 and 2010 first round draft picks. Albeit, there has been a bit of controversy surrounding the trade. Chris Wallace denied in an ESPN article that he had been ordered by owner Michael Heisley to make the Grizzlies more attractive to a potential buyer. Heisley has been trying to sell the franchise for two years. Wallace said, "No one put pressure on me to do this, and Michael Heisley has actually been reluctant to move Pau." He also said that they had been "trolling" the waters for a while and dealt with a number of teams. He selected the Lakers deal because "it didn't get any better than this." When Gasol departed the Grizzlies, he held twelve franchise records, including games played, minutes played, field goals made and attempted, free throws made and attempted, offensive, defensive, and total rebounds, blocked shots, turnovers, and points. Per game statistics, he leads Memphis in defensive and total rebounds along with blocked shots. On February 5, he made his first Lakers appearance in a game against the New Jersey Nets, during which he scored 24 points and had 12 rebounds in a 105–90 win over the Nets. On March 14, Gasol sprained his ankle in a game against the New Orleans Hornets, stepping on the foot of teammate Vladimir Radmanović in the first quarter. Gasol was expected to miss the remaining three games of the Lakers' road trip after x-rays came up negative. Gasol returned to the starting lineup on April 2 against the Portland Trail Blazers and played nearly thirty-two minutes, registering 10 points, six rebounds and seven assists. He admitted to feeling limited with the swelling in his ankle still present. Gasol helped the Lakers finish the regular season with the best record in the Western Conference (57–25), with him in the starting lineup the Lakers went 22–5. Kobe Bryant has also stated that playing with Gasol clicked from the start.

In the Lakers' opening game of the playoffs, he contributed 36 points, 16 rebounds, 8 assists and 3 blocked shots. When the Lakers swept the Denver Nuggets in the first round, it was Gasol's first trip to the second round in four tries. His previous team, the Grizzlies, did not make it to the playoffs for the second year in a row. He contributed 17 points and 13 rebounds in Game 6 against the Utah Jazz to help the Lakers advance to the conference finals. On May 31, he recorded a career high 19 rebounds in a series-clinching win against the San Antonio Spurs, and he became the first Spaniard to reach the NBA Finals. Gasol scored 14.7 points per game on .532 shooting in the 2008 NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics, which was below his scoring average of 18.9 during the regular season, However, he led the Lakers in rebounding with 10.2 per game throughout the championship series, up from his regular-season average of 8.4. Los Angeles lost in six games against Boston in the Finals, including a 131–92 loss in Game 6. During the 2008 NBA Playoffs, Gasol was the second leading Laker in points (16.9), rebounds (9.3) and assists per game (4.0). He was the leader in blocks per game (1.90) and was tied with Lamar Odom with the most postseason double-doubles (10).

Gasol earned his second All-Star appearance as a reserve for the Western Conference squad during the 2008-2009 NBA season, his first as a Laker. He was also named Western Conference Player of the Month after helping the Lakers to an 11–2 record for the month of February that included road wins over Boston and Cleveland. He finished the regular season with averages of 18.9 points, 9.6 rebounds, 3.5 assists, and 1 block per game. Gasol then won his first NBA championship ring when the Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic in the 2009 NBA Finals.

On December 24, 2009 Gasol signed a 3-year extension with the Lakers worth $64.7 million.

Gasol earned his third All-Star appearance as a reserve for the Western Conference and finished the regular season with averages of 18.3 points, 11.3 rebounds, 3.4 assists, and 1.7 blocks. In Game 6 of the first round, Gasol grabbed 18 rebounds and his last-second putback eliminated the Oklahoma City Thunder. In the conference semifinals against the Utah Jazz, he averaged 23.5 points and 14.5 rebounds. In Game 7 of the NBA Finals, Gasol scored 19 points, (6–16 FGM-A, 7–13 FTM-A) grabbed 18 rebounds and recorded two blocks as the Lakers repeated as champions.

Challenged by Lakers' coach Phil Jackson to be more assertive while Bryant recovered from offseason knee surgery, Gasol started the season's first week averaging 25.3 points on 52.5 percent shooting, 10.3 rebounds, and five assists per game as the Lakers started 3–0. He was named Western Conference Player of the Week. Unfortunately,the 40 minutes per night he averaged over the first month of the season seemed to take a toll on Pau. By early December, Pau was complaining about fatigue and his numbers were beginning to falter. However, once Andrew Bynum came back into the fold, taking up a few of Pau's minutes, Gasol seemed settle in to a more comfortable position. He earned his third straight All-Star selection and his season averages of 19 points and 10 rebounds are nearly identical to what he's put up as a Laker the previous three seasons. Pau's play also merited him All-NBA ''second team'' honors for the first time in his career. In the playoffs Gasol's average of 13 points on 42% shooting over 10 games and lack of aggression had the Lakers team suffering all the more for it, getting swept out of the playoffs by the Mavs in the second round. Gasol had the worst post season performance of his career. Lakers Hall of Famer and ESPN analyst Magic Johnson cited Gasol as a possible trade option for the Lakers to acquire Magic center Dwight Howard. Gasol ignored the false reports about his relationship status with his girlfriend as the cause of his poor performance and has accepted the criticism of his play as valid.

Player profile

Gasol is very athletic and quick for a 7-footer (213 cm), and primarily plays the power forward and center positions. He has often been compared to fellow European players Toni Kukoč and Dirk Nowitzki, holding career averages of 18.8 points and 9.0 rebounds. He is a refined scorer in the post and midrange; his overall game is near-ambidextrous and makes it difficult for opposing teams to defend. Gasol uses a variety of midrange jumpers, hook shots, up-and-under moves, and shot fakes to score very efficiently. Gasol's normal jumpshot range extends to 20 feet. In addition, his foot speed relative to his size allows him to run the fast break and finish effectively. He is also a skilled passer for a big man, earning 3.2 assists per game over his career. Defensively, he is an above-average shot blocker with a career average of 1.7 blocks per game. Before being traded to the Los Angeles Lakers during the 2007–08 season, he had played exclusively with the Memphis Grizzlies from 2001–2008. When he was traded to the Lakers, he maintained the same number on his jersey, still playing with the number 16. In his career, Gasol has never been ejected. Gasol scored his 10,000th point in a game against the Jazz on the 2nd of January 2009. He finished with 21 points, 11 rebounds and six assists in the win.

NBA career statistics

Regular season

|- | align="left" | 2001–02 | align="left" | Memphis | 82 || 79 || 36.7 || .518 || .200 || .709 || 8.9 || 2.7 || .5 || 2.1 || 17.6 |- | align="left" | 2002–03 | align="left" | Memphis | 82 || 82 || 36.0 || .510 || .100 || .736 || 8.8 || 2.8 || .4 || 1.8 || 19.0 |- | align="left" | 2003–04 | align="left" | Memphis | 78 || 78 || 31.5 || .482 || .267 || .714 || 7.7 || 2.5 || .6 || 1.7 || 17.7 |- | align="left" | 2004–05 | align="left" | Memphis | 56 || 53 || 32.0 || .514 || .167 || .768 || 7.3 || 2.4 || .7 || 1.7 || 17.8 |- | align="left" | 2005–06 | align="left" | Memphis | 80 || 80 || 39.2 || .503 || .250 || .689 || 8.9 || 4.6 || .6 || 1.9 || 20.4 |- | align="left" | 2006–07 | align="left" | Memphis | 59 || 59 || 36.2 || .538 || .273 || .748 || 9.8 || 3.4 || .5 || 2.1 || 20.8 |- | align="left" | 2007–08 | align="left" | Memphis | 39 || 39 || 36.7 || .501 || .267 || .819 || 8.8 || 3.0 || .4 || 1.4 || 18.9 |- | align="left" | 2007–08 | align="left" | L.A. Lakers | 27 || 27 || 34.0 || .589 || .000 || .789 || 7.8 || 3.5 || .5 || 1.6 || 18.8 |- | align="left" | 2008–09 | align="left" | L.A. Lakers | 81 || 81 || 37.0 || .567 || .500 || .781 || 9.6 || 3.5 || .6 || 1.0 || 18.9 |- | align="left" | 2009–10 | align="left" | L.A. Lakers | 65 || 65 || 37.0 || .536 || .000 || .790 || 11.3 || 3.4 || .6 || 1.7 || 18.3 |- | align="left" | 2010–11 | align="left" | L.A. Lakers | 82 || 82 || 37.0 || .529 || .333 || .823 || 10.2 || 3.3 || .6 || 1.6 || 18.8 |-class="sortbottom" | align="left" | Career | align="left" | | 731 || 725 || 35.9 || .522 || .224 || .751 || 9.1 || 3.2 || .5 || 1.7 || 18.8 |-class="sortbottom" | align="left" | All-Star | align="left" | | 4 || 0 || 19.0 || .563 || .000 || .889 || 8.25 || 1 || .3 || .75 || 11.0

Playoffs

|- | align="left" | 2004 | align="left" | Memphis | 4 || 4 || 33.5 || .571 || .000 || .900 || 5.0 || 2.5 || 1.0 || 1.5 || 18.3 |- | align="left" | 2005 | align="left" | Memphis | 4 || 4 || 33.3 || .488 || 1.000 || .500 || 7.5 || 2.5 || .5 || 1.8 || 21.3 |- | align="left" | 2006 | align="left" | Memphis | 4 || 4 || 39.5 || .433 || .000 || .767 || 6.8 || 3.0 || .5 || 1.2 || 20.3 |- | align="left" | 2008 | align="left" | L.A. Lakers | 21 || 21 || 39.8 || .530 || .000 || .692 || 9.3 || 4.0 || .5 || 1.9 || 16.9 |- | align="left" | 2009 | align="left" | L.A. Lakers | 23 || 23 || 40.5 || .580 || .000 || .714 || 10.8 || 2.5 || .8 || 2.0 || 18.3 |- | align="left" | 2010 | align="left" | L.A. Lakers | 23 || 23 || 39.7 || .539 || .000 || .759 || 11.1 || 3.5 || .4 || 2.1 || 19.6 |- | align="left" | 2011 | align="left" | L.A. Lakers | 10 || 10 || 35.8 || .420 || .500 || .800 || 7.8 || 3.8 || .4 || 1.7 || 13.1 |-class="sortbottom" | align="left" | Career | align="left" | | 89 || 89 || 38.9 || .527 || .286 || .737 || 9.6 || 3.3 || .6 || 1.9 || 17.9

Awards & honors

FC Barcelona

Spanish King's Cup Champion (2000)

Most Valuable Player of the Spanish King's Cup (2001)

Spanish League Champion (2001)

Spanish League Finals MVP (2001)

All-Euroleague Second Team (2001)

NBA

2× NBA Champion (2009, 2010)

NBA Rookie of the Year (2002)

All-NBA Second Team selection (2011)

2× All-NBA Third Team selection (2009, 2010)

4× NBA All-Star (2006, 2009, 2010, 2011)

European Player of the Year awards

7× European Player of the Year:

* 2x Mr. Europa (2004, 2009)

* 3x Euroscar Award (2008, 2009, 2010)

* 2x FIBA Europe Player of the Year (2008, 2009)

Spanish national team

Gold medal at the FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship (1998)

Gold medal at the FIBA Under-19 World Championship (1999)

Bronze medal at the FIBA Europe Under-20 Championship (2000)

Bronze medal at the EuroBasket 2001

Silver medal at the EuroBasket 2003

Gold medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship

Most Valuable player of the 2006 FIBA World Championship

Silver medal at the EuroBasket 2007

Silver medal at 2008 Olympic Basketball Tournament

Gold medal at the EuroBasket 2009

Personal life

Gasol's mother, Marisa, was a medical doctor, and his father, Agustí, was a nurse administrator. When Pau was born, his family was living in Cornellà, but he was born in Barcelona, at Sant Pau Hospital, where both of his parents worked. When he was six years old, his family moved to another Barcelona suburb, Sant Boi de Llobregat, where he spent the remainder of his childhood. His parents moved to the Memphis suburb of Germantown, Tennessee after he signed with the Grizzlies, and enrolled his younger brothers Marc and Adrià in Lausanne Collegiate School in Memphis. They planned to move to the Los Angeles area when Pau was traded to the Lakers, with Agustí accepting a job with a health-care company in that area; although the Grizzlies obtained the rights to Marc's services as part of the trade, he was expected to re-sign with his Spanish team Akasvayu Girona. However, when Marc decided to sign with the Grizzlies, their parents chose to stay in Germantown. Agustí now works from home for the same company, while Marisa now volunteers at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Gasol was never interested in football, but loved basketball. The first sport he played was actually rugby, before switching to basketball. He is described as "a family boy and the perfect student, a tad shy, and a bit of a joker."

He originally did not want to make sports his career. On the day that Magic Johnson announced his HIV-positive status in 1991, the 11-year-old Gasol, who had heard the news in school, decided that he wanted to be a doctor and find a cure for AIDS. He enrolled in medical school at the University of Barcelona, but left as his basketball career at FC Barcelona advanced. He remains strongly interested in medicine. Gasol regularly visits Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles, a standard stop for athletes making charitable visits in the L.A. area, but does not limit his business to visiting young patients. On one visit, he asked a group of doctors well-informed questions about their treatment of children with scoliosis. In April 2010, Gasol was scheduled to sit in on a spinal surgery, wearing surgical scrubs, with Dr. David Skaggs, the hospital's chief of orthopedic surgery. Skaggs has said, "We talk to him now almost like he is a surgical colleague."

Gasol canceled his original plans to observe a surgery when he came down with a low-grade fever the day before the operation, not wishing to risk infecting anyone at the hospital. He was able to reschedule his observation for June 2010, witnessing Skaggs lead a team operating on a 13-year-old girl from Colorado with scoliosis.

Gasol also has a broad range of intellectual and cultural interests. He has taught himself Italian and French to go along with his childhood languages of Catalan and Spanish plus English. He and Kobe Bryant speak to one another during games in Spanish to keep opponents from knowing their plans. Gasol also regularly reads historical novels, plays the works of French classical composers on his keyboard, and attends concerts and operas; he is a friend of Spanish tenor Plácido Domingo, and often visits him backstage after performances.

His younger brother Marc, who is tall and , is also a professional basketball player, currently playing for the Memphis Grizzlies. Marc was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers, 48th overall, in the 2007 NBA Draft and his rights were traded to the Memphis Grizzlies, as part of the deal that sent Gasol to the Lakers. Their youngest brother Adrià played for Lausanne's basketball team; his coach at Lausanne said, "He's built like Pau, with a mean streak like Marc," although he is not yet considered a major basketball prospect.

Gasol denied false reports that he had broken up with his girlfriend, Silvia Lopez Castro, in the exit interviews after his poor performance in the 2011 NBA Playoffs.

See also

List of National Basketball Association career blocks leaders

List of National Basketball Association career playoff blocks leaders

Notes

External links

Official site Pau Gasol on Facebook /

NBA.com Profile

Pau Gasol Player Profile (InterBasket)

Pau Gasol video in Herois

Pau Gasol story on Hoopsworld.com

Pau Gasol Fan Forum

Pau Gasol Player Profile (ACB)

Pau Gasol Italian Fan Site

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Category:1980 births Category:Living people Category:Atlanta Hawks draft picks Category:Basketball players at the 2004 Summer Olympics Category:Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics Category:Catalan basketball players Category:Centers (basketball) Category:FC Barcelona Bàsquet players Category:Forwards (basketball) Category:Liga ACB players Category:Los Angeles Lakers players Category:Memphis Grizzlies players Category:Olympic basketball players of Spain Category:Olympic medalists in basketball Category:Olympic silver medalists for Spain Category:Power forwards (basketball) Category:Spanish expatriate basketball people in the United States Category:Sportspeople from Barcelona

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