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They were all there, standing on that stage with Rudy Gobert. From All-Stars Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns to second-round pick Leonard Miller and two-way player Daishen Nix.
Gobert was holding a news conference to mark his fourth career NBA Defensive Player of the Year award, tying him with Ben Wallace and Dikembe Mutombo for the most in NBA history. It was the culmination of a return to dominance for Gobert in his second season in Minnesota. His teammates know the award means the world to Gobert, so it means the world to them as well.
The event was staged in the atrium at Target Center, a location rarely used by the Timberwolves for news conferences. The last time it happened was when they introduced Gobert after acquiring him in a trade with the Utah Jazz in the summer of 2022.
The setting this year allowed Gobert to reflect on how far he and the team have come — from the icy early days of the union when the trade was the subject of derision across the league to the warmth of the present — with his stifling performance this season keying the league’s best defense and an overpowering 6-0 start to these playoffs.
a beautiful day to celebrate the DPOY 🔒 pic.twitter.com/M8PzwaQ0xN
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) May 8, 2024
The playoff success that has long eluded him is looking more and more possible. The notion that he could be played off the floor against smaller or more skilled lineups has seemed laughable through a four-game sweep of the Phoenix Suns and the Game 1 victory over the Denver Nuggets last week.
Suddenly, the championship that he has long talked about doesn’t seem like wishful thinking. But for Gobert, it goes even deeper than that.
“I think we are trying to accomplish something bigger, but more importantly I think I’ve found a home,” he said. “I’ve found a team, a coaching staff, an organization and a city that has embraced me, and a group that has embraced me.
“I feel like it’s like a family. We are there for each other. We really care about one another.”
In that answer lies the biggest reason for his resurgent season, according to those close to Gobert. Yes, he has been healthier this season than he was at the start of 2022-23, when he missed much of his first training camp with the Wolves while his body recovered from a grueling EuroBasket run with France.
Yes, Wolves president Tim Connelly made one of the best trades in franchise history when he swapped out D’Angelo Russell for Mike Conley and Nickeil Alexander-Walker, exchanging a player whose skill set did not mesh with Gobert’s for two players who were much more familiar with and trusting of his game.
But Gobert also needed to settle in with the Timberwolves and Minnesota. Utah had been his home for the first 10 seasons of his NBA career. He came to the Jazz from France and was raised from an uncertain prospect to an All-NBA center during his time there. Everything was new to Gobert last season: teammates, coaches, support staff, restaurants and recreational opportunities. Everything.
He knew the move was not going to be simple. Before last season began, he predicted that adversity would arrive and test him and his new team. It did not always go well. He averaged the fewest points since the 2015-16 season, grabbed the fewest rebounds since 2017-18 and blocked his fewest shots since he was a rookie in 2013-14.
His partnership with Karl-Anthony Towns never really got off the ground because of a calf injury that caused Towns to miss 51 games, and the Wolves were eliminated in the first round by Denver, a disappointing finish after such a blockbuster trade.
“A lot of times when these trades happen, particularly players who’ve never been moved before, we just take for granted that they’re going to be great professionals and they’re going to come in and do their job and for the most part they do,” coach Chris Finch said. “But the human side, it still takes a while to feel comfortable with all that change.”
It turns out that what everyone — players, coaches and fans — needed was time. Gobert needed time to acclimate to a new city and to learn how he could be most helpful to his new teammates. The rest of the Wolves team needed time to learn how to play with Gobert and to understand just how impactful he can be when everyone is playing together. The fans needed time to understand that Gobert was never going to be starring highlight reels on social media or stepping out to shoot 3s, but few players commit as fully to the pursuit of winning basketball as he does.
Last summer, after the 4-1 series loss to the Nuggets, there were many conversations. Gobert started to see areas where he could compromise in a scheme to better fit in with his teammates. Players started to see how they could play to best utilize his skill set on both ends of the floor. Coaches tailored the schematics to give this super-big lineup an even better chance to succeed.
“Rudy is a thoughtful guy. He doesn’t do anything without considering what he wants to do, how it’s going to work out for him, how it’s going to make him feel and most importantly for the basketball piece, make him perform at the highest level,” Finch said. “He’s come in with all that clean focus this year, and it’s made all the difference.”
Connelly and Finch heard plenty of suggestions that they should punt on the experiment, that there was no way a team could be successful with two bigs in the frontcourt, or at least not these two bigs. But they believed in the idea, and they believed in Gobert. That resonated.
“When things didn’t go as smoothly as we wanted them to last year, they never doubted me,” Gobert said. “They have shown me love every day, pushing me to be better every day, and I really appreciate that.”
Conley played with Gobert in Utah and Minnesota. He knows Rudy as well as anyone in the Timberwolves organization. The difference between now and when Conley first arrived in Minnesota at the trade deadline in February 2023 is palpable.
“I think when he’s feeling good, guys are trusting him, and he feels that being felt from our guys, I think he just becomes a much more comfortable player in feeling out the game and gambling when he can gamble and knowing different times in games when to do that stuff,” Conley said. “So I hope that we’re helping him a little bit.”
The numbers bear that out. His scoring (14.0 points per game), rebounds (12.9), and blocks (2.1) are all up significantly from last season. His 106.6 defensive rating was the best in the NBA among players who play more than 25 minutes per game and the gap between the Wolves’ 108.4 defensive rating as a team and second-place Boston was the equivalent to the gap between the Celtics and 10th-place Houston.
N 🚫 P E.
VOTE » https://t.co/adpbBYDQ4T pic.twitter.com/U3japCbLil
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) January 15, 2024
This is the Gobert the Wolves envisioned they were getting last season, and the winning has come with it. Their 56 wins in the regular season were the second most in franchise history. They have advanced to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in 20 years and their six-game playoff winning streak heading into Game 3 against the Nuggets on Friday is the longest in team history.
“He’s really anchored our defense all year and he’s improved himself,” forward Kyle Anderson said. “Guys said he can’t switch on guys and guard ’em, or guard smaller players, and he’s done that this season. So it’s really special, really well-deserved. I think this (DPOY award) was his best one.”
So far in these playoffs, the only person to play him off the floor is his new baby boy. Gobert and his fiancée welcomed the couple’s first child earlier this week. The arrival of Romeo forced him to miss Game 2 on Monday, a decision that some trolls used to question his commitment to winning.
The Timberwolves backed Gobert to the hilt. They had listened to how excited he was to become a father. He had conversations in the preceding months to set the expectations for what would happen should the baby come during a game. There were no questions asked when he left Denver the day before Game 2 and the weather prevented him from getting back for the game.
“We love that he had his child,” Naz Reid said. “So just the trust and the love we have for each other is on another level.”
Gobert went home knowing his teammates had his back and felt even better watching on television as the group pulled together and delivered one of the best performances of the season in a defensive dismantling of the Nuggets. Just like on that stage, they are all there for him.
“We all want to see each other shine. We all want to see each other prosper, whether it’s family, whether it’s everything outside of basketball,” Gobert said. “It’s a lot of love. It’s really fun to be a part of something like this. Everyone is on the same page and everyone is trying to give everything that they have towards one goal.
“It’s something that I’ve always dreamed of. Every day when I wake up, I’m grateful to be a part of something like this.”
Gobert’s first three DPOY trophies are back at his house in Utah, which he has held onto even after the trade.
“This one,” he said, “we will see where we put it.”
He paused as he thought about it. Maybe this one needs a new home, like the one Gobert has found in Minnesota.
Required reading
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(Photo: David Sherman / NBAE via Getty Images)
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