Why He Is The Most Disrespected Player In The NBA
75,674
Published 2024-05-28
Now we should have expected this, Rudy getting twirled like a ballerina and everyone making jokes
Or the fact that nearly every defender has consistently gotten cooked by Luka and Kyrie.
But that hasn’t stopped the reporters for years.
I've never seen a player with this many accolades be so universally thought of as incapable by current and former players as Rudy Gobert. In fact in a recent player poll, Rudy Gobert was voted as the most overrated player in the NBA.
Now Rudy Gobert offensively is one of the worst centers I’ve ever seen, apart from whatever the f this was. The bench reacted like it was a game winner.
And defensively in the playoffs, he has been a part of some infamous moments that even I’ve roasted him for. But when the talk is this loud even after playing good defense, I think it deserves another look cause here on this channel, we find out the truth
It's time to verify these claims or not, with stats and the things that don't get tracked and see if we've all been lied to because if so, Rudy Gobert is the most disrespected player in the NBA.
To understand how we got here, we need to answer the question, why is Rudy Gobert so hated?
He started from a 59 overall 2k rating, completely raw talent in 2013 who would win his first defensive player of the year in 2018.
In 2018, the 3 finalists were Rudy Gobert, Joel Embiid, and Anthony Davis. And if we look at steals and blocks for the 3, it looks like Anthony Davis should win, until you look at the fact that the Jazz were the best defense in NBA and the Lakers were 13th. And when you realize that Jazz become an absolute bad show without him becoming 21st because they quite literally have horrible perimeter defense and you start to appreciate it more.
But there’s stuff the stats don’t show like just how much players are unwilling to take a shot at the rim. On this possession, there’s 5 instances of players not even attempting to challenge Rudy at the rim. Yeah the team that only shot 3s and layups due to analytics didn’t wanna test their luck.
During this 3 year stretch, Rudy Gobert won defensive player of the year in 2021 over Ben Simmons and Draymond. And I’ll put up the steals and blocks comparison for the 3, but what is more important here again is impact. Rudy has the most defensive win shares, and the lowest defensive rating
Even in 2022 when the candidates are Marcus Smart, Mikal Bridges, and Gobert, he has the highest DWS, and the lowest defensive rating, but the Celtics had the best defense in the NBA and led to Marcus Smart winning the award, which is deserved.
Because when he doesn’t, it’s just a layup.
And we can actually see moments like that against the Clippers in 2021. Like if Reggie Jackson is getting by your perimeter defense this easily, I don’t know what Rudy Gobert is supposed to do.
While it’s true that a 5 out offense can diminish Rudy which I do not want to just sweep over, the Jazz perimeter defense was just not there. And it allows the 5 out offense to work if you can’t keep people in front of you. Rudy’s defense was to make up for a lot of these mistakes.
The problem here is that the Jazz had so many defensive problems that we couldn’t really see Rudy in a normal playoff environment. If your playoff defense hinges on one defender, it’s going to get exposed no matter what. And even then on the Jazz, without him their defensive rating was 123.2, with him, 119.5 so still better.
I will say in a modern NBA, Rudy’s value is not as high as it would be 15 years ago. My only issue is that it seems like there’s only one way for Rudy to be used defensively, and that is in the paint as a shot deterrent. Is that because he’s only great at one attribute and sucks at the rest or is it that teams haven’t been creative enough with him.
*It’s easy to blame Rudy because he’s unique and gets got.* But every great defender gets got, because they put themselves in situations over and over again to get crossed or dunked on. But when you look at the numbers, you look at the games, you look at the nuance, it’s clear that Rudy is quite literally a great defender, not worth the contract, *but doesn’t deserve all the disrespect he gets for what he’s achieved.*
All Comments (21)
-
Which player do you hate the most and why? Twitter- @MJ2KALLDAY
-
He really doesn't deserve the hate. It's not his fault the Jazz offered him that massive contract. He knows he's not a good offensive player, so he does his best on the defensive side and he is successful at it.
-
‘Rudy bad’ is more about media avoiding ‘Luka dominates Ant and everyone’. NBA don’t like euro’s being better than Americans every year.
-
ad was on the pelicans in 2018? did anyone else see that
-
To be fair to Gobert, it’s not like he’s getting cooked by name your favorite “modern day equivalent of Scott Hastings” bench warmer. Going off of just this year’s playoffs, he was abused in the 2nd round by 3 time MVP, Nikola Jokic, who has a better than great chance to finish his career as a top 15, and potentially even top 10 greatest player of all time. And in this Dallas series, of course he’s getting cooked by Luka on switch offs….Gobert isn’t known as a perimeter defender, he’s a center whose primary responsibility on defense, is defending the post. I’m not a Gobert fan, or a T-Wolves fan. In fact, I can’t stand the T-Wolves. They’re probably my least favorite team in any professional sport, and I think they’re one of the most overrated, and overhyped teams in the NBA. But, I do think critics are being a little unfair in their assessment of Gobert. If we were talking about 1 defensive player of the year award for Gobert, you could make the argument that maybe he’s a one hit wonder, and he overachieved for 1 season, but has been below average the majority of his career. But we’re talking 4 DPOTY awards. Once a player wins more than one individual award, whether it’s DPOTY, MVP, or All-NBA, I think you can confidently argue that the player in question is legit.
-
Gobert was the best interior defender and the best perimeter defender on the Jazz. And he got blamed for their defence. Amazing
-
I think people think being a defensive player means u can't be scored on, Rudy plays good defense even AD and Giannas have been crossed before, stop the hate 😂😂
-
As usual, the casuals and idiotic sports media is wrong about a player. Numbers show Rudy is a defensive beast.
-
As a Jazz fan I sure wish we still had him. Our defense used to be awesome. Now it is the worst. Nuff said
-
Luka is a savage yelling at Rudy.
-
I’m happy Gobert got those 4 DPOY because no matter what anyone say his legacy is stamped in history. He also has the undeniable fact that he has always has been held to a superstar standard, every loss his team had he was held accountable like a MJ, Bron, or Shaq have been.
-
Anyone else notice Shaq keeps criticizing bigs that have the potential to beat him? Particularly agile bigs with huge wingspans (McGee, Gobert)? Shaq may be powerful but I always see envy when he criticizing players with gifts that he doesn't have.
-
Rudy is a good defender strictly in the paint. He obviously cannot guard guards or SF with handles and more quickness. Not a DPOY if you’re only good in the paint
-
I forget the exact fg% but rudy has been the best against jokic, and when you you look at the 2020 lakers rudy has done a better job than all three centers on that team against jokic
-
As much as I dislike Rudy Gobert, I will always give him credit for what he does on the court. He's a good player. I just think he is overpaid, but not overrated. I thought they gave up WAYYYYYYYY too much to get him, but at this point they are definitely moving in the right direction.
-
Outside of game 5 rudy is the only one who made jokic play a step below himself
-
At this point, I’ve changed sides to calling Rudy underrated. Mind you, I always enjoy clowning him for his perimeter defense and low light clips as much as the next guy, but it’s just gone WAY too far. It’s just that, since he’s the best defender everywhere he goes, he always guards the best players in the clutch. So any game winners/ highlight players are facing Rudy like 80% of the time, so bro’s bound to get cooked once in a while. But we gotta stop pushing the DPOY recall narrative, cuz while I personally would argue Wemby should’ve been DPOY over Rudy, I think it’s egregious to say that he was undeserving of it.
-
The thing about these DPOY voters I don’t get is that they value perimeter defense so much. Yet they voted for Rudy four times??? And when he struggles in the perimeter in the offs they criticize him for that? It’s like buying a small harmless house dog for the purpose of guarding your house and getting mad at it when it does a poor job.
-
Draymond has cognitive defieciency
-
I am not the biggest Rudy fan but am not a hater as well For the Jazz in defence position it was literally Rudy vs 5 guys mann Show the bro some love I know he fu*ks up sometimes but who doesn't f up sometimes mann
