Rewriting history with Rudy Gobert

Overrated? Hated? A case that the Stifle Tower is on a path to begruding, belated respect.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

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Motif Romanesque; Maurice Denis; 1890

Rudy Gobert has one of the more fascinating player lores in the modern NBA. Next week the NBA will almost assuredly announce that he has won his fourth Defensive Player of the Year award. With that he will tie Dikembe Mutombo and Ben Wallace with the most wins ever. In comparison to other defense-first centers, he skews toward knowing his role — he’s not out here like Dwight Howard, demanding post touches and arguing with coaches. While starring for an often-invisible Utah Jazz team, he made headlines a few times: for crying after being denied an All-Star reserve spot by voters (a show of emotion for which he was widely mocked), for a seemingly tense relationship with teammate Donovan Mitchell and, most famously, for mockingly contaminating reporter mics and phones after being ruled out with illness just days before we learned he was Patient Zero in the NBA’s first known COVID-19 outbreak.

From a basketball perspective, the biggest issue analysts and some players took issue with was the way that some teams could “play Gobert off the court” by playing stretch lineups that forced Rudy to the perimeter, where he couldn’t do anything with Terance Mann or Jalen Brunson or even Maxi Kleber. Because he offered little more then rim-running and finishing on offense, if Gobert is unable to protect the rim, what’s the use? Quin Snyder indeed would pull Gobert in critical stretches because of this issue, letting the opponent dictate Utah’s lineups. Add in an enormous salary hit for Gobert, and you have a problem. Perhaps the most famous example is the brutal Jazz series against the Mavericks in 2022. Despite this dagger alley-oop between Mitchell and Gobert in Game 4 …

… the Mavericks won the series and questions about Gobert’s impact, his relationship with Mitchell and the team’s future reached fever pitch.

That series led to this.

Snyder resigned and the Wolves traded an enormous cache of players and picks for Gobert. Then the Jazz traded Mitchell for players and picks, too. The Wolves were largely mocked for spending a fortune to get Gobert, given the common consensus around Gobert. And Gobert’s work in Minnesota — helping the Wolves get to the playoffs while missing Karl-Anthony Towns most of last season, helping the Wolves get the No. 1 overall defense and nearly the No. 1 seed in the West this season — doesn’t appear to have swayed the opinions of too many folks.

Or at least not players.

The Athletic released its annual player poll, surveying about a third of the league on a variety of matters. Gobert finished sixth in the question about the NBA’s best defensive player. And when players were asked about the league’s most overrated player, Gobert finished No. 1, edging Jordan Poole (?!) and last year’s winner Trae Young.

Ironically, ESPN’s Tim MacMahon had just days prior published a long story on Gobert’s status among NBA stars, including some thoughts from Gobert himself on why he’s not well-liked among his peers.

Gobert said he has pondered the potential reasons over the years, discussing them with members of his inner circle: cultural differences, his quirky personality, his style of play, the stature and money he has earned.

"In their eyes, I'm more like the odd guy from France that's winning a lot of awards, and it can bother people," Gobert said. "I impact the games in a very unique way. It's maybe not as cool or not as flashy as some other guys, so it's sometimes harder for them to respect that.

"I just think I'm just mostly misunderstood. I think I trigger a lot of these guys."

I’m not sure this is entirely it, because no one is more odd than Nikola Jokic, and he has earned a ton of respect from his peers. (In that survey from The Athletic, he finished second behind only quirky Frenchman Victor Wembanyama on the question of with whom voters would start their team.) That said Jokic (and Wembanyama, for that matter) is flashy and cool. Gobert’s game is not.

It’s effective as hell, though.