We report on the formation and growth of nanobubbles around laser-heated gold nanoparticles in water. Using a hydrodynamic free-energy model, we show that the temporal evolution of the nanobubble radius is asymmetrical: the expansion is found to be adiabatic, while the collapse is best described by an isothermal evolution. We unveil the critical role of the thermal boundary resistance in the kinetics of formation of the nanobubbles: close to the vapor production threshold, nanobubble generation is very long, yielding optimal conditions for laser-energy conversion. Furthermore, the long appearance times allow nanoparticle melting before the onset of vaporization.