A few years ago at a Defector retreat in the Poconos, while watching Victor Wembanyama's Metropolitans 92 play Scoot Henderson's G-League Ignite in a cabin that smelled faintly crazy, Giri and I got in an argument with Luis about who the greatest French player of all time was. He was clear: Tony Parker; we were equally clear: Rudy Gobert. The case for Parker is quite simple, and as it hews closely to my faintly trollish Tim Duncan GOAT case, I can only roll my eyes at it so hard. Parker was pretty good, forever, and he won a million games, four rings, and made six all-star teams
Gobert, on the other hand, has had none of the team success and arguably less of the individual success than Parker, yet his time as the best rim protector in the NBA is nearing a decade. The argument that Gobert's paradigm-shifting defense mattered more than Parker's constancy and sheaf of victories is sort of a tricky one to make because defense is less determinate than a win or a loss. Something Luis pressed on and we admitted to was the fact that Gobert is kind of annoying. He was normal about it, but we were all onto something there. Also, the NBA world at large does not respect him
Shaq has been King Hater for years, and last week on his son's podcast, he said that Gobert was the worst player in the NBA. He knew he was hyperbolizing, yet he expressed what is a pretty common sentiment among many of his peers. Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala mocked him after he cried when he didn't make the 2019 all-star team, the Clippers all laughed at him last year, and Ja Morant laughed at him when he airballed a free throw last year.
The criticism, to me, boils down to two core issues. Gobert is corny and French and open about the insecurities he has as a player, and that comes off as weakness, which is something to be seized upon and mocked relentlessly. One of the defining traits of professional athletes is an irrational level of self-confidence, and it probably seems totally alien, especially in an extremely masculine environment like the NBA, to question oneself, let alone to do so publicly. The other is that he is clunkily unskilled at a lot of bread and butter basketball stuff, like shooting free throws, and that rankles. How can a guy make $250 million and shoot free throws like that? There's some faint anti-analytics grumbling here.
The case Giri and I made will be impossible to make in like two years once Victor Wembanyama becomes the first guy to average like 40 points and 30 rebounds, but I still think Gobert doesn't deserve the shit he gets. The Wolves come into this season as one of the most fascinating teams in the NBA, and I can't wait to watch them. A lot of this is Anthony Edwards doing cool stuff, but also, when they play totally locked-in defense, there's nothing like it. Gobert is the lynchpin of that, and he's deserved every DPOY he's got.
-Patrick Redford
Photo: David Berding/Getty Images
