Pau Gasol and His Wife Cat Announce They Are Expecting Baby No. 3: ‘New Rookie Signing!’ and Celebrate Growing Family.Giang

Pau Gasol‘s team is getting a little bit bigger!

On Sunday, July 28, the retired NBA All-Star player, 44, and his wife, Cat McDonnell, announced in joint posts on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram that they are expecting their third child.

“New Rookie signing!” the couple captioned their posts, alongside photos of their current family of four as they posed together in their living room. Their daughter and son could be seen sporting some custom-made T-shirts reading “Big Sister” and “Big Brother,” respectively.

“Gasol starting 5, coming this fall 2024 season. 🧔🏻‍♂️👩🏼👧🏻👦🏼👶🏻,” Gasol and McDonnell jokingly added.

The former Los Angeles Laker star and his wife are already parents to 1-year-old son Max and 3-year-old daughter Elisabet Gianna. The pair announced Max’s arrival in an Instagram post in December 2022, writing in both English and Spanish: “Our baby boy has arrived!!”

“We are beyond happy to welcome our son to the world,” they continued at the time. “Everything has gone really well and we are officially a family of 4!”

Gasol has previously been candid about his close friendship with his former teammate, the late Lakers star Kobe Bryant, and when Elisabet was born in September 2023, he and McDonnell announced that they would be naming her after Bryant’s then-13-year-old daughter, Gianna, after they both died tragically in a helicopter crash in January 2020.

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They also chose Kobe’s wife Vanessa Bryant to be their daughter’s godmother.

“Elisabet Gianna Gasol 😍, a very meaningful name for our super beautiful daughter!!” Gasol wrote at the time.

When he was just a father-of-one in 2021, Gasol opened up to PEOPLE about being a “girl dad,” as well as the loss of his friend Kobe.

“Obviously, the way the accident, the tragedy, [it] was an incredibly hard hit for a lot of people, especially for the ones that love Kobe and Gigi, and obviously, the family and friends of all the seven other victims,” he said.

Despite the tragedy that impacted his life — and the lives of so many NBA stars — the Spanish basketball player said that first-time parenthood changed him for the better.

“Ellie is incredible and we are looking forward to expanding our family,” he told PEOPLE, calling Elisabet by her nickname and reflecting on how many children he’d like to have in the future. “We’ll see what number it ends up being, so one at a time, because you don’t realize the amount of work and dedication that a kid requires until you actually have it.”

“It sounds really all good theoretically, but you have to be … you’re responsible for a human being,” he added of raising kids. “I like to be present with my children as much as I can, but I also want to do a lot of things because I have opportunities to do exceptional things. Finding that balance is going to be always the key to being able to be present and having a healthy family life and then also pursue ambitious goals outside of a family.”