Lakers’ Pau Gasol winning fans, one tweet at a time

The phrase is wildly overused in sports.

Football’s renaissance man. Basketball’s renaissance man. Mixed martial arts’ renaissance man.

OK, maybe not the last one.

Overuse reigns. So we will steer clear of using that description of the Lakers’ Pau Gasol.

But the Spaniard is a delight to interview, a man of varied interests and unfailingly polite under intense pressure from the media horde, often firing questions at him in two languages.

One of the terrific byproducts of Twitter is that the fans also get a good glimpse of Gasol’s personality and his varied interests, all on display for his 1.5-million plus followers.

At @paugasol, Gasol had logged 3,695 tweets, as of Friday afternoon.

In the last few days, he has tweeted about giving away tickets to the upcoming exhibition game against the Clippers, the Rolling Stones, Spain’s national soccer team, efforts to end world hunger and offered support to those combating and surviving breast cancer.

My favorite? Not only did Gasol tweet on Wednesday about the winner of the Booker Prize, but he also indicated that one of the author’s books was coming up on his reading list.

“Congrats to Hilary Mantel for winning her second #Booker!! Have you read any of her books!? “Wolf Hall” “Bring Up The Bodies”! #nextread

And, of course, in Spanish, too.

“Enhorabuena a Hilary Mantel por su #Booker! El segundo que gana! Me recomendáis “En la corte del lobo”?#proximalectura

ALSO:

Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson have unscripted moment

Dwight Howard says he’s nervous about making Lakers debut

Jordan Hill returns to Lakers practice after suffering herniated disk