Rudy Gobert: Future DPOY

[HawaiianJazzFan]

How good is he already?

Averaging 3.1 blocks over the past month - more than anyone in the NBA. And he's doing it in just 26 minutes.

His defensive numbers are ridiculous. 1st in defensive efficiency, Top 5 in nearly all individual metrics.

The kid is the real deal. Without exaggeration, I really think he will be one of the all time great defensive players in this league.

His physical attributes are obvious, but his mental attributes are possibly his greatest strength. He's the most intelligent young big I've seen. His game IQ is staggering. It's really hard to believe he's a rookie. It gets tossed around a lot, but he truly does play like he's a 10 year veteran.

Some quotes:

"That was the toughest (game I've played) this season. That guy Gobert. Wow, insane. He just didn't let up. Like a shadow. Honestly, I'm glad it's over and we move on to the next one"
Dwight Howard after Gobert held him to just 8 points

"Gobert was a machine. Serge said in the locker room that he couldn't believe some of the blocks that kid made...and that's coming from the best in the league at it. He's a wall inside."
Scott Brooks after Gobert's 7 block game against OKC

Here is another one from Hibbert:

''Gobert is so athletic. He is so much better than I was my second year,'' Hibbert said.

[HawaiianJazzFan]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsMVBsVmFhA[/youtube]

Highlights from yesterday, he was 8/11 from the line yesterday, and some nice passes.

[JMac1]

Last three games since this thread got hot:


Len
13pts and 10rebs tonight
14 and 13 against Memphis on Sunday
4 and 12 against SAS

Rudy
16pts and 11rebs tonight
4 and 5 against Hou
4 and 7 against OKC

I'm tracking all of his games now..Ha

You're forgetting blocks, that's what Gobert really is beasting at. I believe he just slid past Pau Gasol for 4th in bpg.

I just got the three game snap shot from ESPN, didn't show blocks. Obviously blocks atre a huge part of Gobert's game. Nice to see he put up 16 pts and made 8-10 FTs.

[JMac1]

I wish he was paired beside Davis in Nawlins.

Love Davis' game sooooo sweet.

[Winglish]

This type of post is just annoying. The truth is that the jazz backcourt looks pretty good but guys are injured and young. Exum is not 2 yrs away. By next year he will be a consistent contributor along with Hood. Burks will be back and healthy and Trey Burke has started to play some good ball as well. Between Hayward, Burks, Burke, Exum and Hood the jazz backcourt looks really solid going forward and we may end up adding another key player with next years first.

Is there ever darkness in your sunny world?

Exum is not aggressive. At all. He does not have strength. He's an out-of-shape dough boy like me. His shooting percentages are in steep decline, down to 31% from three and 38% overall.

Dante Exum is two years away. Maybe more.

[jazzfan1971]

I have to agree. His game seems to completely lack agression, especially on the offensive side of the court.

I guess you could have said the same about Trey last year though and he's coming along. I hope that Exum does as well otherwise he'll be like a Marvin Williams level player at best.

[Dcebucks11]

exum is raw, dude needs time and time is on his side.

[HawaiianJazzFan]

Yeah, I believe the Jazz are getting the 3rd worst play from the PG position, only behind the Lakers and Twolves. Trey wouldn't be a starter on pretty much any other team besides those 3. Our starting, backup, and 3rd string SG's are also all injured. We have the worst guard rotation in the NBA... could you imagine how much better we could be with good guard play? How much easier would it be for Favors and Gobert to play with guards that can pass?? I mean Trey has to be the worst big man passer in the league, and our SG position (or we should call it our parade of 10-day contracts) can't pass either... can someone teach Trey to throw a lob pass?? The lob pass is open so often for Gobert.

[Catchall]

Jazz had an intentionally thin bench this year. With the injuries it's down to just about nothing....Booker, Ingles and ?? 10-day contract guys.

[dautjazz]

Last three games since this thread got hot:


Len
13pts and 10rebs tonight
14 and 13 against Memphis on Sunday
4 and 12 against SAS

Rudy
16pts and 11rebs tonight
4 and 5 against Hou
4 and 7 against OKC

I'm tracking all of his games now..Ha

You're forgetting blocks, that's what Gobert really is beasting at. I believe he just slid past Pau Gasol for 4th in bpg.

I just got the three game snap shot from ESPN, didn't show blocks. Obviously blocks atre a huge part of Gobert's game. Nice to see he put up 16 pts and made 8-10 FTs.

It's fine, just coming from a Suns fan it looks like you're picking stats that make Gobert look worse, by choosing a very small sample size (his pts/rbs sucked the other two games), but if you included information like asts, rbs, blks, and FG/FGA, it'd show how great he's playing

These are Rudy's January stats:

7 games 32.1mpg .667 FG% .667 FT% 10.0ppg 8.4rpg 1.7apg 4.4bpg 1.3spg 1.9 TOV 2.0 PF
January PER36: 11.2ppg 9.5rpg 1.9apg 4.96bpg 1.44spg 2.1 TOV 2.2 PF

Len's January stats:

7 games 25.7mpg .595 FG% .818 FG% 8.4ppg 8.6rpg .7apg 3.0bpg 0.6spg 2.0 TOV 3.6 PF
January PER36: 11.8ppg 12.0rpg 1.0apg 4.20bpg .80spg 2.8 TOV 2.8 PF

PPG Len has a small edge, rebounding has been a slow month for Gobert (he was averaging 11+ PER36), regardless Len gets that edge, and Len has a higher FT%, but the margin in the regular season is smaller in a larger sample. Gobert is significantly better passer, shot blocker, steals, less turnovers, less foul prone. The defensive advance stats stay a great deal more for Rudy than Len too. Len has been playing great, but I just don't think he's in gobert's league. I think if Gobert gets around 32-36mpg for a full season next year that he could probably put up 12ppg 11rpg 2apg 4bpg 1.5spg while shooting over .650 from the field, and in the .700 range from the line.

[jazzfan1971]

I had no idea Len was playing that well.

[HawaiianJazzFan]

I actually started watching him because of Jmac and the other Suns fans... kid's good, he does foul too much still, but most young players are like that, Favors had that problem for a while. Len also suffers from the same thing our bigs do, they have guards that are definite shoot first pass later, the difference is the Sun's guards actually make their shots. I don't know what Rudy drank as a kid to be so good at not fouling.

[HawaiianJazzFan]

You're forgetting blocks, that's what Gobert really is beasting at. I believe he just slid past Pau Gasol for 4th in bpg.

I just got the three game snap shot from ESPN, didn't show blocks. Obviously blocks atre a huge part of Gobert's game. Nice to see he put up 16 pts and made 8-10 FTs.

It's fine, just coming from a Suns fan it looks like you're picking stats that make Gobert look worse, by choosing a very small sample size (his pts/rbs sucked the other two games), but if you included information like asts, rbs, blks, and FG/FGA, it'd show how great he's playing

These are Rudy's January stats:

7 games 32.1mpg .667 FG% .667 FT% 10.0ppg 8.4rpg 1.7apg 4.4bpg 1.3spg 1.9 TOV 2.0 PF
January PER36: 11.2ppg 9.5rpg 1.9apg 4.96bpg 1.44spg 2.1 TOV 2.2 PF

Len's January stats:

7 games 25.7mpg .595 FG% .818 FG% 8.4ppg 8.6rpg .7apg 3.0bpg 0.6spg 2.0 TOV 3.6 PF
January PER36: 11.8ppg 12.0rpg 1.0apg 4.20bpg .80spg 2.8 TOV 2.8 PF

PPG Len has a small edge, rebounding has been a slow month for Gobert (he was averaging 11+ PER36), regardless Len gets that edge, and Len has a higher FT%, but the margin in the regular season is smaller in a larger sample. Gobert is significantly better passer, shot blocker, steals, less turnovers, less foul prone. The defensive advance stats stay a great deal more for Rudy than Len too. Len has been playing great, but I just don't think he's in gobert's league. I think if Gobert gets around 32-36mpg for a full season next year that he could probably put up 12ppg 11rpg 2apg 4bpg 1.5spg while shooting over .650 from the field, and in the .700 range from the line.

I think it's a little more difficult for Gobert to average a ton of rebounds. Phoenix is in the bottom 5 for rebounding (by rate) and Utah is the 2nd best rebounding team in the NBA. All of Utah's big men are above average rebounders (even Booker), so they are all fighting for rebounds. The Suns front court are all below average rebounders (except Len of course). Also, Phoenix plays at one of the fastest paces in the NBA, and Utah plays at the 2nd slowest pace in the NBA, so there are more rebounds in Suns games. Gobert does have a better rebound percentage. Gobert's rebound percentage is 23.1% while Len is at 16.0% (they rebound on the defensive end pretty similarly but Rudy is a MUCH better offensive rebounder). Gobert has been the better rebounder.

[cyclix]

Gobert is a beast. I just looked at his stats and impressed to see how good his numbers are. He can definitely be a perennial DPOY candidate along with Len.

[DaFan334]

Some good young Centers coming in to the league right now. Jusuf Nurkic is having a similar January to Len and Gobert and should probably be thrown into this discussion. In 22.5 minutes per game he is averaging 11ppg, 7.8rpg, 3.2bpg, 1.2spg, and 1.2apg while only picking up 2.5 fouls and 1.2 turnovers per game. The lower minutes per game should go up the more he adapts to the NBA and gets into better shape. Even with a small sample size, this definitely shows that he has a bright future.

[DeBlazerRiddem]

Still cant believe I had Blazer fans arguing with me on draft night that we shouldn't have outbid Utah because of the measly million or two in capspace we would preserve. I told them then that a million or two for a kid like this is a good bet, god I wish I could have convinced Olshey. Imagine Gobert next to Aldridge....

[Qwigglez]

I actually started watching him because of Jmac and the other Suns fans... kid's good, he does foul too much still, but most young players are like that, Favors had that problem for a while. Len also suffers from the same thing our bigs do, they have guards that are definite shoot first pass later, the difference is the Sun's guards actually make their shots. I don't know what Rudy drank as a kid to be so good at not fouling.

I think Len gets a lot of ticky tack fouls that normally wouldn't be called on veteran players. He'll start to handle them better as the season goes on.
As far as this debate of Rudy vs Len. I like both of em, and I am happy to say I picked up both of these players in my fantasy league (I also have Anthony Davis, also picked up Nurkic).

[Catchall]

Working on his range...

[HawaiianJazzFan]

Working on his range...

Rudy is still young, he has a good FT stroke, there is no reason to think that he can't add this to his game. It will be exciting if he is able to start to space the floor with his shot.

[dautjazz]

I just got the three game snap shot from ESPN, didn't show blocks. Obviously blocks atre a huge part of Gobert's game. Nice to see he put up 16 pts and made 8-10 FTs.

It's fine, just coming from a Suns fan it looks like you're picking stats that make Gobert look worse, by choosing a very small sample size (his pts/rbs sucked the other two games), but if you included information like asts, rbs, blks, and FG/FGA, it'd show how great he's playing

These are Rudy's January stats:

7 games 32.1mpg .667 FG% .667 FT% 10.0ppg 8.4rpg 1.7apg 4.4bpg 1.3spg 1.9 TOV 2.0 PF
January PER36: 11.2ppg 9.5rpg 1.9apg 4.96bpg 1.44spg 2.1 TOV 2.2 PF

Len's January stats:

7 games 25.7mpg .595 FG% .818 FG% 8.4ppg 8.6rpg .7apg 3.0bpg 0.6spg 2.0 TOV 3.6 PF
January PER36: 11.8ppg 12.0rpg 1.0apg 4.20bpg .80spg 2.8 TOV 2.8 PF

PPG Len has a small edge, rebounding has been a slow month for Gobert (he was averaging 11+ PER36), regardless Len gets that edge, and Len has a higher FT%, but the margin in the regular season is smaller in a larger sample. Gobert is significantly better passer, shot blocker, steals, less turnovers, less foul prone. The defensive advance stats stay a great deal more for Rudy than Len too. Len has been playing great, but I just don't think he's in gobert's league. I think if Gobert gets around 32-36mpg for a full season next year that he could probably put up 12ppg 11rpg 2apg 4bpg 1.5spg while shooting over .650 from the field, and in the .700 range from the line.

I think it's a little more difficult for Gobert to average a ton of rebounds. Phoenix is in the bottom 5 for rebounding (by rate) and Utah is the 2nd best rebounding team in the NBA. All of Utah's big men are above average rebounders (even Booker), so they are all fighting for rebounds. The Suns front court are all below average rebounders (except Len of course). Also, Phoenix plays at one of the fastest paces in the NBA, and Utah plays at the 2nd slowest pace in the NBA, so there are more rebounds in Suns games. Gobert does have a better rebound percentage. Gobert's rebound percentage is 23.1% while Len is at 16.0% (they rebound on the defensive end pretty similarly but Rudy is a MUCH better offensive rebounder). Gobert has been the better rebounder.

Wpw PER 100 possession Gobert kills Len.

Gobert: 16.2ppg 17.1rpg 2.4apg 1.7spg 5.6bpg 2.9 TOV 4.9 PF
Len: 15.3ppg 14.3rpg 1.1apg 1.3spg 3.7bpg 2.3 TOV 8.0 PF