Chicago Bulls' Pau Gasol Calls Deep Dish Pizza 'Just A Cake Of Melted Cheese'

In a recent interview with GQ, Chicago Bulls center and power forward Pau Gasol had some critical and potentially incendiary words for deep dish pizza, one of Chicago's most prized culinary inventions.

"I've tried it," Gasol told GQ. "I'm not a fan of this deep dish pizza. To me, it's just a cake of melted cheese. I like the thin-crusted pizzas better."

Although he has played for the Bulls since 2014 and has been in NBA since 2001, the Barcelona-born Gasol has no particular ties to Chicago or its food history, which is perhaps why he lacks the deep connection that Chicagoans typically feel for deep dish.

Gasol, however, is hardly alone when it comes to his preference for thin-crust pizza. In fact, the long-running debate actually goes all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States, thanks to one judge, Antonin Scalia.

Scalia, a pizza purist, said in 2011 that Chicago deep dish pizza should actually be called a "tomato pie," and then, following a visit to Chicago in 2014, issued this unapologetic ruling:

"Real pizza is Neapolitan [from Naples, Italy]. It is thin. It is crispy and chewy, OK?"