Rudy Gobert’s reputation as a defender does exactly not match his accolades. He is a four-time NBA Defensive Player of the year, winning as recently as last season. He has been on the NBA All-Defensive First Team seven times. He’s lead the league in blocks, lead the league in rebounds, and has made four All-NBA teams.
You can get all that from his Wikipedia page. If you just watch basketball, you can tell people don’t really want to shoot at the rim when he’s out there. Minnesota’s defense last year was some of the most ferocious, team-wide defense I’ve seen in a long time. They reminded me of the “go to work” pistons in that, outside of Ant, they were more fun to watch when they didn’t have the ball.
Despite that, there are still people who do not seem to believe in his defense. Not in just the “he might be overrated” sense, but in the “we can’t have him on the floor” sense. Again, fun to make fun of Rudy, but that’s a little silly. He can get attacked with mismatches from time to time, but does that override the rest of his value?
Please stop. I just want to mock Rudy Gobert. Remember when he caused Covid?
Yeah. That’s still a problem, by the way. It didn’t, like, stop.
Anyway, the mismatches. How are those going against the Lakers?
All Rudy Gobert isolation plays through 2 playoff games vs. Lakers.
— Mohamed (@mcfdraft) April 23, 2025
When guarded by Gobert in isolation, opposing scorers are shooting only 41.7% (5-12 FG) from the field, per @SynergySST.
Leave it to the TL to tell you he’s unplayable and is costing MN games #FactsOverAgendas pic.twitter.com/Ga5nivEkeN
But that’s just one stat though. What about everything else? Well, I checked pbpstats. During the regular season, with Rudy Gobert on the court, the offensive rating dipped about 1 point, but the defensive rating was five points better. In the playoffs, the difference is even more striking. The offensive rating drops about five points, but the defensive rating falls a massive 14+ points.
It's a small sample size, so I decided to go back and look at every year Rudy was in the playoffs to check whether his being on the court helped or hurt. Last year in the playoffs, having Rudy on was a one point aid to the defense, but it was somehow a 16 (!!!) point difference in Minnesota’s favor on offense. You have to go back to a 2019 first-round playoffs series against James Harden’s Rockets to find a postseason where he was a net negative for his team.
Oddly, the biggest difference he seemed to make sometimes was on offense? I don’t know. But having him on the court was good.
Rudy Gobert is not perfect on defense, but he’s one of the best at the stuff he does well. He’s also a maddeningly irritating human being. That doesn’t make him the cause of a Game 2 loss last night.