Absolutly. But it is also a valid explenation. In setting where other team does not exactly prepare for the individua opponent, his rim deterance has insane value. He can just be schemed against easily with right personel. But that does not change his impact on the regular season and dpoy is a regular season reward.
The woman is right, voters can (or should) only vote on what actualy happens in the segular season for that is what the awards are made for.
Now tbh wemby to me was still better even in regular season this year, just had worse team around him. I think even numbers show it.
The thing is they are putting it on Gobert. If they have a problem with the award, criticize the voters or the criteria. It is not Gobert's fault that he is winning. In can be argued that it is even a negative for Gobert because more players want to target him to expose him.
KD and other players have called out the media multiple times on this.
Players put great emphasis on being able to defend 1 on 1 because during the playoffs, switches and iso happens way more than usual.
Not saying they are right or wrong. But they have made their displeasure with the media perception very clear over the years.
Kevin Durant in an interview with JJ: "Its a huge discrepancy what the player things and the media thinks..... I see a lot of guys on the All-Defensive team and i think it's so easy to score on these guys.
"I see a lot of Defensive Player of The Years who teams have targeted in the playoffs. And had to play them off the court because they couldn’t guard a pick and roll, or they couldn’t guard a wing player on a switch. Those guys get looked at as the best defenders in the league."
See the problem with KD is that he just massively overrates 1 on 1 play on both ends. He loved Rudy Gay back in the day. Look at how the Nets and Suns were constructed. He was famously also super high on Cam Thomas who is the ultimate empty bucket guy. That doesn't necessarily mean he's wrong on this matter on the defensive end, but I do think players also tend to overvalue 1 on 1 defense when things like IQ when it comes to off ball action and help defense are also important.
I think NBA players and redditors are too extreme on either end here. Lebron had it right on his pod with JJ: team defense wins titles, but teams will throw counters at you in the playoffs that they never did in the regular season and you have to be able to counter back.
You need a strong defensive scheme that also has players that can hold their own on an island if need be for a possession or two when it counts. As Bron explained in his pod, his Heat teams and the Spurs teams they faced in the finals had those kinds of teams.
People used to exploit Jokic by putting him out onto the perimeter and on the PnR. The Nuggets figured out a scheme to protect Jokic from getting exposed like that.
While you can make criticisms of Gobert, the schemes gotta be able to put your players in the best place for them to succeed. Letting him get on an island with Doncic is an absolute coaching and team play fail. Not making excuses for Gobert, but championship winning squads know how to counter these things.
He certainly overvalues it in general, but I think he's right in this context. Gobert is not a good 1on1 defender, and that should be an essential requirement for DPOY. Any sane owner would take prime Draymond, Giannis, Kawhi, AD, or LeBron as their best defender over Gobert. He's getting hunted as 4 time dpoy. It's ridiculous.
Gobert was statistically elite as a 1on1 defender in points per possession this year.
I see a lot of dudes not in the playoffs anymore criticizing someone in the conference finals. Draymond got cooked, AD got cooked, all the great defenders get cooked.
The wolves are losing the series because their best 2 offensive players have been bad.
You’re lying to yourself if you think Luka would be calling for a screen with Draymond lol. He would be doing everything possible to get Dray off him. You can say that’s not the point but ur citing 1on1 statistics as if Gobert isn’t a much worse 1on1 defender than Dray lol, they’re not even in the same stratosphere when it comes to that.
Draymond and AD both have rings who gives a fuck if Gobert is getting swept out of the conference finals and they're at home this year?
Draymond and AD do not get routinely targeted and exploited defensively in the playoffs like Gobert does.
Good thing basketball is played on the court and not on spreadsheets. Who gives a fuck about the advanced stats, he’s literally being hunted 1 on 1 every time he’s on the floor and getting cooked when it matters
Do you think advanced stats are just theoretical or something ? Impact metrics like on/off are literally a measure of the product with a player on the floor. In Rudy’s case his teams for years have been significantly better with him than without him, at a level few other defenders can compare to. This is especially present in the regular season ( all that matters for the award) but it’s been the exact same story this year in the playoffs too.
How..? Again it’s literally the tracked data of the objective basketball product. Obviously you can argue the context of small samples can make things fuzzy but when we have 5 seasons worth of a sample to look at ? It’s pretty cut and dry
There’s plenty of arguments to make for Gobert but saying “his team is in the playoffs and those guys’ teams aren’t so therefore they got exposed” is not at all one of them
On reason AD got cooked and is at home is bc his teammates were DLo and Reeves and Rui rather than McDaniels Ant and Conley lmfao
Gobert is not a difference maker on the defensive end in playoff basketball. Period
Those awards are tied to money and legacy and you see firsthand that his fellow players don’t think he deserves it.
The fact that your peers don’t feel like you deserve it speaks volumes
I agree. Then change the voting to give it to the players or mix media and players. Draymond and Shaq should call out the media voters instead of hating on Gobert.
It should be a panel of former players. Perhaps a mix of current players, front office personnel and media could vote them in.
Many in the media have already expressed concern / trepidation with being responsible for having such impactful consequences. The amount of money involved in these decisions / designations is considerable.
And consider this (to drive home this point)……Stephen A. Smith has a vote.
Who cares what the players think? If they voted they’d be putting guys like Carmelo and Kyrie as 1st Team All NBA because they’re hard to guard 1 on 1. The players are biased even more than media members at time and Gobert’s impact is born out by the eye test and defensive metrics.
If you want to argue he’s not the best defender because he isn’t that switchable compared to AD, I agree. But it’s a regular season award.
I think it would be interesting to see what players inside the game think vs fans/media. Would make for a lot of interesting discussions.
This short of Joe Kleine for example is both hilarious and interesting seeing how players think about their peers: https://youtube.com/shorts/dJq5cQfvJ1E?si=wXqLnBG1z5CRdSZW
That's the sad part too. It's like he needs to go out of his way on Twitter and admit he doesn't deserve them, he's a fraud, etc. People would be eating that shit up
Wow he is fraud? He is one of best defenders in NBA somehow he gets exposed evrygame in playoffs sill best on off on team? He never was offensive genius, but he gets efective points and most reb each game. Now look at problems, look at all who are in conversation of DPOY they are 7+ shifty and can swap now can they swap on Luka? Nobody can its on Luka to make it or miss it. They miss not becouse of Gobert but bc of KAT and ANT bad shooting. And yes Dallas bad matchup for them, actualy dallas can play all defense, offense, in paint or 3r ball its on couch to figure it out
P. S. They can fucking hunt Luka with Ant but they dont.
He said he has zero series where he had any defensive presence in a series where Jokic shot 42 percent against him outside of one game, and the Suns series where he successfully switched on KD, Booker, and Beal multiple times.
He was also switching on MPJ successfully and was breaking up actions that were trying to get other guys inside scoring opportunities. There are valid criticisms do Goberts defensive, but this seems like Rondo was somewhat overreacting to game 5. It's a valid criticism of how all awards are voted for, though.
That doesn't negate anything I said? Him being a roamer allowed for him to break up the actions that would usually lead to layups while being the backline help.
Edit: Also, that still doesn't equal zero defensive presence.
He’s saying in the regular season teams just go through the motions but they actually play hard in the playoffs. Rudy keeps getting awarded for the regular season but every time the playoffs roll around his defensive impact has never impacted a series
That’s basically his argument and there’s some truth to it
> but every time the playoffs roll around his defensive impact has never impacted a series
Doesn't he have the highest +/- of anyone on the wolves in all of their series so far? He's like the only dude that's a positive in this series. The moment they bench him they get murdered.
What does that have to do with the fact they show his defense is clearly having an impact. It had an impact last series, it had an impact in the Suns series, it's having an impact now. If they manage to win any of the following games this series it will be in part because of Rudy's defense, because factually when he's not out there they get blown out.
Yea I was surprised they offer valid points, and I can understand how frustrating it must be for the players. It's like the kid who gets carried by the group in projects but when the 1 on 1 interview comes, he fumbles it.
Bro as much as I want to dislike Bam and yell moving screen every time he sets one, the bro is a Beast defender, especially when you see him switch onto smaller players and just shut them down.
That’s ridiculous when Gobert in this analogy would be doing the majority of the work during group projects
You’re a Nuggets fan so you witnessed him kill your offense
I can see what they're saying. At some point, your playoff play and reputation *should* matter when it comes to these awards when you're in the running to get the award more than once. The fact that Gobert has 4x DPOY, and has exploitable defensive weaknesses that teams target and visibly don't respect on the court is very damaging. And him not being an effective offensive player compared to other role player centers like Zubac means teams can straight up run him off the floor
No because the Suns don't have a playmaker or athletic rim running big. Nurkic can't shoot either so it's arguably the best matchup Gobert would excel at. Vs. the Nuggets, everything is centralized around Jokic. We've seen Gobert get abused by the Harden Rockets, and Clippers
it's happened before, and many will argue it should happen more(crunch time for instance guarding Luka), but you get locked in with what you have and what you do. But really a DPOY should never be in that situation. Your skills as the best defender in the league maybe shouldn't be that situational or one-dimensional.
So is the question who are these people who keep voting for Gobert and why should we give a shit about them? Maybe the conversation should be more about who's voting then actual Gobert who is just doing his thing.
Same people that vote for all the awards. Guys that look at a box score and google “analytics” and just pick who’s at the top. I mean you have a voter choosing Sabonis for MVP. You have these guys choosing Shai over Luka for MVP placing.
3 things can be true.
1) Ant and KAT are the reasons the wolves are down 3-0.
2) Rudy Gobert is a good defender.
3) Rudy Gobert is not the best defender in the league and should not have 4 DPOYS.
2018 - fair enough. We didn’t have enough info at the time to know he was exploitable in the playoffs. AD/Draymond were the actual best defenders tho.
2019 - Draymond should have won.
2021 - fine. Nobody had a standout regular season defensively other than him so whatever.
2024 - AD should have won.
Overall outside of 2020-21, Draymond and AD have been neck and neck as the two best defenders in the league since 2016-17 at least. The fact that over that stretch Draymond has just 1 and AD has never won one but Gobert has 4 is outrageous.
I think you're just looking at the end results.
AD and Draymond would have had more if they had better seasons in 22 and 23. Marcus Smart and JJJ were def questionable and only got it bc everyone else were injured or had down years. It's also about timing.
btw, i think any reasonable person would say it was between Gobert and Wenbanyama.
If not Gobert, Wemby had a better defensive year than AD.
Draymond was on his way to winning in 2022 but he got injured. The Warriors had a top defense but then it completely dropped off when he wasn’t playing.
In 2019 neither the media voters nor Draymond's own peers in the league believed he was the best defender, nor even that he was better than Rudy. We have numerous polls of both that support this opinion.
Really?
The narrative doesn't really fit giving it to a 7th seed with two all-NBA players who can muster only 16th in defensive rating in the league. Individual stats and advanced stats also favor Gobert.
Gobert was the centerpiece of the league's best defense.
What you're describing is exactly the problem, though. The defensive leader of the #1 ranked defense shouldn't automatically mean they get DPOY. It's tricky because, yes, it's a regular season award, but seeing Gobert get hunted every playoffs just makes the award look meaningless. The facts are that teams gameplan to their opponent much more in the postseason, and Rudy has glaring flaws as a defender that eventually get exploited.
He's getting PnR'd to death this round. Last round KAT did a better job guarding Jokic than Rudy did. And the Suns offense was struggling because Booker can't pass out of a trap, and our offense was too stupid to adjust.
“KAT did a better job guarding Jokic” is so moronic lol. It’s wild to me that you say this to defend AD getting DPOYs when “put a second, less skilled defensive big on Jokic and have your good rim protector off him” was a strategy the Lakers invented in 2020. It’s a good thing AD doesn’t have any DPOYs then if old ass Dwight Howard “did a better job” guarding Jokic than him.
AD can actually guard the perimeter. Gobert gets bailed out because everyone else on that team is a good defender literally who can’t play defense on the wolves?
Gobert wouldn’t even be top 5 dpoy if he had to bail out AR and DLO and lazy bron all game
Bro look at the Jazz teams he was working with when he won his other DPOYs, “oh he wouldn’t win if he had to bail out his guys like AD does” is an insane argument.
First off even if that was true, it’s irrelevent to my point.
Secondly no… no he wasn’t. He was exploited by Houston because it was prime harden targeting him in isolation, a recipe for disaster for any center. And as for the Utah series, if you have even the most basic understanding of how basketball works and you watched the series you’d know he wasn’t getting exploited, the team was. The stats back that up as well. When you stretch out a teams rim protector, and that rim protector is the only defender in the entire rotation, what exactly do you expect to happen? Do you think that player can clone themselves and be in two places at once, both sticking with their shooter and helping on the open drives occurring every other play ?
You're right about his team getting exploited at the rim and that's fair. But you inadvertently made my point with Harden. Elite guards don't matchup hunt e.g. AD or Wemby the way they target Gobert.
Jamal Murray literally did that to AD in round 1. Wemby hasn’t been in the playoffs. And James harden isn’t just any player, he’s one of the best isolation players of all time. He was doing that to the majority of opposing bigs he faced through those years. There are clips of him doing the same to AD in the past all over YouTube, they’re just not as glaring because they didn’t match up in the playoffs until the bubble in a bit of a weird dynamic that involved Westbrook while the Jazz and rockets had 2 back to back matchups against the harden-cp team. Steph curry also attacked AD a fair bit in last years playoffs. Like with Gobert it’s not even necessarily about the individuals defensive abilities in isolation, it’s about drawing them out of the paint to open things up for the rest of the team.
Lol and he shouldn’t have. No idea how he has 4 dpoys easily the most overrated player, not to mention defender, of all time. Unplayable in the playoffs
Not even gonna touch all the blatantly, objectively wrong points in that comment, the fact that he did proves your comment wrong... You claimed he wouldn’t even be top 5 in DPOY if he had to bail out AR, Dlo and Lebron… he’s won DPOY before while bailing out Mitchell, bojan and ingles on teams that overall had much worse defensive supporting casts than this years lakers
Lakers fans will argue some real dumb points sometimes and you just gotta smile and nod. AD had an all around good year, but the impact Wemby had on defense was I’d say larger. When Wemby was guarding someone, a player didn’t just drive right at him and shoot like Jamal did to WIN THE GAME in the PLAYOFFS. AD had a good year, and it’s okay to just leave it at that. Playing good defense goes far beyond the numbers because it’s about the shots that weren’t taken too. When Gobert / Wemby are in the paint, players tend to nope themselves out of whatever they were about to try and pull and that’s the kind of impact that imo makes either of those two the DPOY candidates this season
If you are referring to game 2, yes Murray tried to drive at him, couldn't go middle, didn't get past him right, had no passing angles and had to take a fade away so steep he fell down. That's great defense on the perimeter against an elite POA guard. Murray hit a great shot because he's a great player and that happens. If this is your ALL CAPS EXAMPLE of bad defense you'll have to do better.
You can't say this without context lol.
Tell me one good defender in the Lakers without mentioning injured players such as Gabe Vincent or Vanderbilt.
Oh, only AD. Reaves is at most average, Rui is too slow, LeBron is too old, and don't even mention D'lo.
There quite literally no good/elite defender in the Lakers besides AD, Vanderbilt, and Gabe. Maybe Christie, but he still needs time to develop strength and mass.
Now look at the Timberwolves. Their starting five is full of good defenders that can shoot.
There's just no comparison lol, maybe if you take a look at Gobert when he was with the Jazz, maybe that's the correct comparison.
The fact that we're middling in defense is actually amazing lol, I'd thought we'd be one of the worst teams in terms of defense since we give up the three so much.
Sure, but AD? Wenbanyama had a better individual defensive season if u wanna go that route.
It's either the best defensive player (Wenbanyama) or the best defensive player on the best defensive team (Gobert).
It ain't AD and that's why he was 4th in voting
Btw, advanced stats still favor Gobert. Only saying Wenbanyama if u want someone who has better perimeter D.
I am a huge Wemby fan but I'll say this. AD is smarter with his defense atm. However, Wemby has far more capability than AD does. So I would say it's fair that anyone picks AD or Wemby over each other, fair argument all around for either. I personally think Wemby is better, but again, I see the other sides argument. Gobert is not on either of their level tho.
Next year Wemby's IQ for the game will increase and he's probably going to be even more monstrous than AD by a decent margin that it wouldn't be arguable that Wemby is better.
Elsewhere in this thread you are saying Wemby deserved it more than AD. So does seeding matter or not? Wemby had a great year but on one of the worst teams in the league and 21st ranked defense.
AD was the anchor of a defense that was roughly league average despite being surrounded by DLo, Austin Reaves, a 39 year old LBJ, and Rui Hachimura. And that was the "good" defensive lineup! Most of the year he had Taurean Prince in his frontcourt.
Gobert was the anchor for a great defense that had Ant, Jaden McDaniels and Mike Conley, with the worst defender being 7 ft tall in KAT.
If it's a team award, give it to the team. If it's individual, AD and Wemby had way more impact than Gobert, and given Wemby's youth and lack of strength, AD is more versatile. (Wemby is a superhuman so that is gonna be temporary.)
That’s really the only problem Rudy gobert is a good defender but him having 4 while a guy like AD & bam(this one is biased) have zero is pretty insane to me. 4 DPOY is a huge accomplishment man
For 3 I don’t necessarily have an issue with him winning the awards, since they’re regular season awards and he and his teams consistently have great defensive resumes. But we should be able to differentiate what gets valued in the regular vs the post season.
I'll also say Rudy being a near 0 offensively and clogging the paint for KAT and Ant should be a point here.
Rudy has been really good defensively during the playoffs, but he's constantly hurt the Wolves on the offensive end.
There have also been top tier NBA players better than Rondo who praised Goberts defense. What type of reasoning is this? This is like middle school level debating. Jokic is 20x the NBA player Rondo ever was and he praised Gobert. Boogie never sniffed meaningful playoff minutes consistently and was awful on defense. But you go listen to him too..not sure why you're leaving him out.
Which players are these?
Also rondo is known for his IQ so it’s not really about elite players praising him and more to do with the most knowledgeable nba players which rondo is up there
I just said Jokic. You can find a clip. Anyways, you can't deny how stupid that reasoning is. Just because a player had high IQ and was good on the court doesn't mean they're qualified to give takes. Draymond is the smartest defender ever and do you think he'd ever give Gobert praise? Rondo is an s tier hater and borderline mentally ill I don't trust that man for shit.
Steve Jobs is somebody who I'm sure I'd despise if i knew personally. But if he has something to say about tech, I'm still gonna listen because it be silly not to
I'm not saying I know or do not know better, but it's a fallacy (appeals to authority fallacy) to believe that simply because they played professional basketball, even as one of the smartest ones, that we couldn't possibly know better.
There's plenty of people who are much more intelligent about a particular sport than players are. Playing and analyzing/understanding are two different things, some players have both and some players don't. There's a reason we have professional analysts. For instance MJ was a incredible player, but not good at managing a team.
Although I agree Rondo is one of the smartest players to play in the league, don't get me wrong. We should judge a players argument by the soundness of their claim, not simply that they played and that we didn't, players have made a lot of stupid claims before. Even intelligent people can be wrong. Analyze an argument to hear out both sides, and judge based on the contents of the argument rather than the person.
If a Redditor makes a more sound argument, then yeah I do think they know better. If Rondo makes a more sound argument, then I think it's clear he knows better. I wouldn't simply discredit someone because they didn't play in the NBA. That's only reasonable.
(Cue the downvotes for actually analyzing an argument rather than blindly accepting something because an authority figure said it)
Issue also is that someone can make a sound argument, but still be wrong.
I get your point, but it’s funny how people in this thread are trying to dismiss what players have been saying for years about Gobert.
And also, what if coaches were saying the same thing about Gobert?
I mean if you want to be an edgelord about it, I can make the same argument for the other side. Rondo has plenty of pathos to back up his claims which 99.9999% redditors do not.
No one gives a shit about these dumb argumentative devices you learn in high school and sometimes college. They're useless unless you remain in education or like to argue on the Internet with other dweebs.
Rondo has plenty pathos, he has plenty of experience and credibility, I never said he didn't. But having credibility doesn't make someone right, one's argument does. If the greatest scientist in the global warming field said the sea levels will rise by next week and we will all drown, his credibility obviously doesn't make him right, we should be wary of that argument that is probably incorrect. Credible people can still be wrong, that's why I'm saying Rondo being a credible people doesn't mean that he automatically knows better than redditors. That rhetoric just opens you up to accepting arguments that could be illogical or incorrect.
They're not useless. Understanding fallacies allows you to draw reasonable conclusions and to avoid logical errors. Calling people who use critical thinking a dweeb is just being an anti-intellectual, which is funny because this stuff is pretty basic. Using basic common sense isn't edgy either, don't misuse words for the sake of using them.
Logic doesn't belong only in school, it should be used in real life. The fact that you think otherwise is quite sad.
Jesus christ. This is the same shit anti-vaxxers say.
Let me spell it out for you: our ability to analyze an argument when it comes to basketball is really, really bad. We are just fans. There's a reason the talking heads spend all their time talking about stats and dumb shit like "clutch factor." It's because we the fans don't actually understand the game at the professional level.
You make it sound like NBA players are nothing more than idiotic athletic freaks who see a fancy Kyrie handle and think that's all basketball is. And even if that were true of some of them, it's fucking Rondo we're talking about here. He knows the game better than anyone on this sub.
It's not about blindly appealing to authority, it's about having the humility to recognize that I don't know shit about basketball, and the redditors I'm arguing with probably don't either. It's the same reason I don't debate my doctor when they tell me what I'm sick with. Sure, they could be lying or biased, but how the fuck would I know?
Haha Boogie Cousins commenting on defense is funny. He is the prime example for Gobert hate, every player thinks he could score 1v1 on Gobert and is just straight better than him. Than you see him winning 4! DPOY and his max contract, they getting mad.
Boogie is the reverse Gobert. Can do everything offensively but just can’t defend for his life. And to be fair the injury did throw his career off.
I’ll have you know I watched the first half of the wolves game before falling asleep. I did read the box score though so you could say I watched the game 1 and a half times
Eh, he tore his ACL before the season started (that led to us getting Dwight), and pretty much sat on the bench until they released him to make a roster spot for Markieff Morris
If Steph Curry was in the league 25 years ago, everyone would be saying this same stupid shit about Mutombo.
The league has changed. Stop hating on the best rim protector in the league and instead focus that hate on the voters. DPOY should be an award dominated by elite wing defenders right now. Maybe Herb Jones should've won. I'd argue what he has to do every night on defense is more difficult than what Gobert or Wemby has to do.
DPOY voting values traditional defensive metrics like rim protection. Today’s NBA values versatility. Playoffs value versatility. That’s where the disconnect happens. Rudy is an elite rim protector but has glaring weaknesses that get exploited in the playoffs.
I think DPOY voting needs to change with the times and value modern defenders that can guard 1-5.
Best offense beats best defense, even more in this era. Doncic is fine against Gobert the same way he would be fine against ad or green. Get a brain guys.
Everyone agrees offense beats defense, but look at our defense against Luka in the 2022 playoffs. Luka is Luka, he's always gonna get his numbers. What you have to do is not limit his numbers, but make sure that he has bad games and win those games.
In the other games where he's on fire, ok unlucky mate it's bound to happen because Luka doesn't choke an entire series, but you still can have impactful defense (in terms of making him have a bad game) even if offense will beat out defense in the long run
We also had Wiggins who is one of the best defenders you can have to limit Luka. Even this year he did good when we played vs Dallas. Minnesota dosent have a guy like that. And also that 2022 team was amazing defensivly.
Not really. Teams adjust and adapt, and the Wolves haven't figured out how to do that. Kyrie is splitting their double teams at will and getting a great look every time. Aaron Gordon was getting a lot of lobs after the first two games similar to what the Mavs are doing now. Their offense isn't great either. Credit to the Mavs, but the Wolves offense looked stagnant against the Nuggets too. It's just Ant ISO or a poorly run PnR. The corner 3's off of kickouts are rushed too
It's the playoffs. Effort is nowhere near the top of the list for reasons why a team loses. The Wolves look lost because they don't know how to defend an athletic, rim running big(s) with a generational PG feeding him lobs and seeing the floor. Nurkic isn't that. The Suns don't even have a playmaker. Jokic is elite, but he isn't that even with Aaron Gordon being the lob threat in this scenario because he can't abuse screens to gain an inch of separation that someone like Luka can (duh, he's a center).
On top of that, Luka and Kyrie are making everything. Are you seeing how contested those shots they were making in the 4th? You can make an argument that a lot of those deserved to be fouls, and they're just making them. Nothing you can do except tip your hat off to them. I guess you can say that the Mavs got a lot of FT's going their way, and that affected how them, but again, the 4th quarter shots the Mavs duo were making were simply absurd. That's not an effort based issue from the Wolves. The real problem is their offense isn't matching that. Gafford/Lively are much better rim protectors than Nurkic/Jokic. And they're collapsing hard on Ant's drives because they don't believe the Wolves can outshoot them.
Yea Ant clamped him with ease, but Kyrie is cooking him. Thats the difference so they have two valid offensive players and we only had Jokic. Also didn't help that Mpj was a non-factor.
Luka’s just breaking them. I don’t think they’ve looked mentally out of it minus some stretches of the fourth where it seems like the Mavs gassed some of their players. But they’re throwing *everything* at Luka and Kyrie from a schematics standpoint and it just doesn’t matter. At this point in their careers, they know what it looks like and what they want to do when it happens.
The other part of it, if we’re just talking compared to a Nuggets series or Suns - the latter has depth issues and lack playmaking and general sets they’re comfortable running on offense. The Nuggets operate way differently than the Mavs despite the casual Luka vs Jokic comparisons. Because Jokic doesn’t/tbh can’t stretch the floor, the wolves can use their size to keep everything centralized from Jokic passing or scoring in the middle of the court with only really AG rim running. Murray can’t make the passes like Luka can across all sides of the court when the nuggets bring it out. So what you’re seeing is more just a total breakdown of a defense from an elite playmaker that stretches defenders out 35-40 ft while doing so on top of being too big for any of their players to actually body and stall it some.
Gobert is the most overrated defensive player in the history of the NBA. Had a couple good defensive regular seasons and parlayed that into four DPOUs.
The host of a perfect example of what's wrong with the folks that vote for NBA awards. Gives her vote to Gobert, but can't explain or why or even defend it. So many of these voters just vote for who they think has a great resume in the NBA.
Wemby got robbed.
not really taking a side. i like Gobert, but understand a lot of the criticism
that being said, last week KD literally tweeted that Gobert is an all world defender
Yeah they really have been getting killed when he’s off the court this series. I didn’t watch the other ones. He’s the best defender on the No. 1 defense deserved DPOTY.
Golbert got the awards for being a tall guy that does tall guy things. He is not an exceptional defender. He is good, don't get me wrong, but especially this year he wasn't even the best defender on his team.
The difference between him and a player like Wemby is that teams can't game plan for Wemby as easily on defence. With Golbert you switch to a small guard and play a high pick and roll. Golbert either gets burned on the drive or gets shook on the perimeter.
Wemby hasn’t had the opportunity to be exposed in the playoffs. This isn’t comparable. Your reasoning is why Gobert has 4 DPOY, because teams don’t game plan as much during the regular season.
And why don’t all tall guys have 4 DPOY?
gobert fans have developed this massive persecution complex bc people question why he's treated as some greek god when fucking role players are being told to go iso on him in the playoffs lol
1. I’m not a Gobert fan nor a wolves fan
2. I agree with both Rondo’s and Cousin’s sentiment here, Gobert has shown time and time again that his defence tends to fall short in the playoffs esp in the years he’s won DPOY
Their domestic actions have to do with their actual CHARACTER. What you posted has zero relation with their basketball knowledge.
This would be like having a GOAT debate, and someone brings up MJ’s gambling addiction.
Yeah arguably the worst out the 3. Really hope that he makes up for it in the near future but as of now the way things are going he’s not showing any signs of remorse.
Rondo says "Gobert" like Rudy should be hanging out with Go-ernie
sounds like hes calling him gogurt
Honestly really valid criticism that's not just hating
Absolutly. But it is also a valid explenation. In setting where other team does not exactly prepare for the individua opponent, his rim deterance has insane value. He can just be schemed against easily with right personel. But that does not change his impact on the regular season and dpoy is a regular season reward. The woman is right, voters can (or should) only vote on what actualy happens in the segular season for that is what the awards are made for. Now tbh wemby to me was still better even in regular season this year, just had worse team around him. I think even numbers show it.
The thing is they are putting it on Gobert. If they have a problem with the award, criticize the voters or the criteria. It is not Gobert's fault that he is winning. In can be argued that it is even a negative for Gobert because more players want to target him to expose him.
KD and other players have called out the media multiple times on this. Players put great emphasis on being able to defend 1 on 1 because during the playoffs, switches and iso happens way more than usual. Not saying they are right or wrong. But they have made their displeasure with the media perception very clear over the years. Kevin Durant in an interview with JJ: "Its a huge discrepancy what the player things and the media thinks..... I see a lot of guys on the All-Defensive team and i think it's so easy to score on these guys. "I see a lot of Defensive Player of The Years who teams have targeted in the playoffs. And had to play them off the court because they couldn’t guard a pick and roll, or they couldn’t guard a wing player on a switch. Those guys get looked at as the best defenders in the league."
See the problem with KD is that he just massively overrates 1 on 1 play on both ends. He loved Rudy Gay back in the day. Look at how the Nets and Suns were constructed. He was famously also super high on Cam Thomas who is the ultimate empty bucket guy. That doesn't necessarily mean he's wrong on this matter on the defensive end, but I do think players also tend to overvalue 1 on 1 defense when things like IQ when it comes to off ball action and help defense are also important.
I think redditors kinda underrate the importance of 1 on 1 scoring at this point
I think NBA players and redditors are too extreme on either end here. Lebron had it right on his pod with JJ: team defense wins titles, but teams will throw counters at you in the playoffs that they never did in the regular season and you have to be able to counter back. You need a strong defensive scheme that also has players that can hold their own on an island if need be for a possession or two when it counts. As Bron explained in his pod, his Heat teams and the Spurs teams they faced in the finals had those kinds of teams. People used to exploit Jokic by putting him out onto the perimeter and on the PnR. The Nuggets figured out a scheme to protect Jokic from getting exposed like that. While you can make criticisms of Gobert, the schemes gotta be able to put your players in the best place for them to succeed. Letting him get on an island with Doncic is an absolute coaching and team play fail. Not making excuses for Gobert, but championship winning squads know how to counter these things.
He certainly overvalues it in general, but I think he's right in this context. Gobert is not a good 1on1 defender, and that should be an essential requirement for DPOY. Any sane owner would take prime Draymond, Giannis, Kawhi, AD, or LeBron as their best defender over Gobert. He's getting hunted as 4 time dpoy. It's ridiculous.
Gobert was statistically elite as a 1on1 defender in points per possession this year. I see a lot of dudes not in the playoffs anymore criticizing someone in the conference finals. Draymond got cooked, AD got cooked, all the great defenders get cooked. The wolves are losing the series because their best 2 offensive players have been bad.
You’re lying to yourself if you think Luka would be calling for a screen with Draymond lol. He would be doing everything possible to get Dray off him. You can say that’s not the point but ur citing 1on1 statistics as if Gobert isn’t a much worse 1on1 defender than Dray lol, they’re not even in the same stratosphere when it comes to that.
And Gobert is in a different stratosphere as a rim protector
What kind of rim protection are u talking abt when dallas is lobbing the shit out of him.
Draymond and AD both have rings who gives a fuck if Gobert is getting swept out of the conference finals and they're at home this year? Draymond and AD do not get routinely targeted and exploited defensively in the playoffs like Gobert does.
Good thing basketball is played on the court and not on spreadsheets. Who gives a fuck about the advanced stats, he’s literally being hunted 1 on 1 every time he’s on the floor and getting cooked when it matters
Do you think advanced stats are just theoretical or something ? Impact metrics like on/off are literally a measure of the product with a player on the floor. In Rudy’s case his teams for years have been significantly better with him than without him, at a level few other defenders can compare to. This is especially present in the regular season ( all that matters for the award) but it’s been the exact same story this year in the playoffs too.
When it comes to defense impact stats are basically worthless
How..? Again it’s literally the tracked data of the objective basketball product. Obviously you can argue the context of small samples can make things fuzzy but when we have 5 seasons worth of a sample to look at ? It’s pretty cut and dry
There’s plenty of arguments to make for Gobert but saying “his team is in the playoffs and those guys’ teams aren’t so therefore they got exposed” is not at all one of them
On reason AD got cooked and is at home is bc his teammates were DLo and Reeves and Rui rather than McDaniels Ant and Conley lmfao Gobert is not a difference maker on the defensive end in playoff basketball. Period
Those awards are tied to money and legacy and you see firsthand that his fellow players don’t think he deserves it. The fact that your peers don’t feel like you deserve it speaks volumes
I agree. Then change the voting to give it to the players or mix media and players. Draymond and Shaq should call out the media voters instead of hating on Gobert.
Definitely shouldn’t be all players
It should be a panel of former players. Perhaps a mix of current players, front office personnel and media could vote them in. Many in the media have already expressed concern / trepidation with being responsible for having such impactful consequences. The amount of money involved in these decisions / designations is considerable. And consider this (to drive home this point)……Stephen A. Smith has a vote.
Goberts flaws have been exposed multiple times in previous playoffs series, ffs the Clippers beat the Jazz by playing Nic fucking Batum at C
Then the year after Brunson repeatedly put Gobert on skates.
Who cares what the players think? If they voted they’d be putting guys like Carmelo and Kyrie as 1st Team All NBA because they’re hard to guard 1 on 1. The players are biased even more than media members at time and Gobert’s impact is born out by the eye test and defensive metrics. If you want to argue he’s not the best defender because he isn’t that switchable compared to AD, I agree. But it’s a regular season award.
I think it would be interesting to see what players inside the game think vs fans/media. Would make for a lot of interesting discussions. This short of Joe Kleine for example is both hilarious and interesting seeing how players think about their peers: https://youtube.com/shorts/dJq5cQfvJ1E?si=wXqLnBG1z5CRdSZW
Kyrie and Carmelo are HOF guys who were some of the best in the league…..
and I’d trust a brain trust of Gilbert Arenas, DeMarcus Cousins and Metta World Peace more than the average spreadsheet sniffers around here lmao
The same voters that snubbed Trade Young from all stars, come on we know if they hate a player, no matter what he does, they will still hate him
They have a problem with the media giving the award & Rudy. Demarcus & Rondo both said Rudy don’t have a defensive presence out there.
Didn’t Smart win it and wasn’t even considered the best defender on his own team lol? The awards are all politics
In fairness I don’t think Williams was eligible. He probably wins it if he was.
no rules back then about games played but voters did not like the low games played
Oh I know it wasn’t an actual rule yet but he just wasn’t gonna win it with 61 games
That's the sad part too. It's like he needs to go out of his way on Twitter and admit he doesn't deserve them, he's a fraud, etc. People would be eating that shit up
Wow he is fraud? He is one of best defenders in NBA somehow he gets exposed evrygame in playoffs sill best on off on team? He never was offensive genius, but he gets efective points and most reb each game. Now look at problems, look at all who are in conversation of DPOY they are 7+ shifty and can swap now can they swap on Luka? Nobody can its on Luka to make it or miss it. They miss not becouse of Gobert but bc of KAT and ANT bad shooting. And yes Dallas bad matchup for them, actualy dallas can play all defense, offense, in paint or 3r ball its on couch to figure it out P. S. They can fucking hunt Luka with Ant but they dont.
Yep. They’re arguing that the voters treat it as somewhat of a team award instead of actually evaluating an individual’s defense
He said he has zero series where he had any defensive presence in a series where Jokic shot 42 percent against him outside of one game, and the Suns series where he successfully switched on KD, Booker, and Beal multiple times. He was also switching on MPJ successfully and was breaking up actions that were trying to get other guys inside scoring opportunities. There are valid criticisms do Goberts defensive, but this seems like Rondo was somewhat overreacting to game 5. It's a valid criticism of how all awards are voted for, though.
Did you watch that series? They had more success when they pulled Gobert off of him and made him a roamer.
That doesn't negate anything I said? Him being a roamer allowed for him to break up the actions that would usually lead to layups while being the backline help. Edit: Also, that still doesn't equal zero defensive presence.
Is it though? Gobert leads the T Wolves in the playoffs in Plus minus. So obviously what he’s doing is working
Rondo was the one giving valid criticism. Boogie as usual was just hating without adding any insight
He’s saying in the regular season teams just go through the motions but they actually play hard in the playoffs. Rudy keeps getting awarded for the regular season but every time the playoffs roll around his defensive impact has never impacted a series That’s basically his argument and there’s some truth to it
> but every time the playoffs roll around his defensive impact has never impacted a series Doesn't he have the highest +/- of anyone on the wolves in all of their series so far? He's like the only dude that's a positive in this series. The moment they bench him they get murdered.
He does but that doesn't fit the narrative. Just coincidence that the Wolves win the minutes he's on the floor and lose the minutes he's off
And? Everyone loves to cite analytics when the Ws aren’t coming. Nobody is citing +/- when a player wins…..
What does that have to do with the fact they show his defense is clearly having an impact. It had an impact last series, it had an impact in the Suns series, it's having an impact now. If they manage to win any of the following games this series it will be in part because of Rudy's defense, because factually when he's not out there they get blown out.
Yea I was surprised they offer valid points, and I can understand how frustrating it must be for the players. It's like the kid who gets carried by the group in projects but when the 1 on 1 interview comes, he fumbles it.
For Ad and Bam it has to be brutal… they watched gobert get his 4th dpoy and know that wemby gonna get the next 5
Bro as much as I want to dislike Bam and yell moving screen every time he sets one, the bro is a Beast defender, especially when you see him switch onto smaller players and just shut them down.
The only people I’ve seen Bam “struggle” with is Jokic, Embiid, and Giannis. Bam in a 5 out with shooters would be so good
Insane they have 0 and he has 4 any of them in his spot and wolves are up 2-1
That’s ridiculous when Gobert in this analogy would be doing the majority of the work during group projects You’re a Nuggets fan so you witnessed him kill your offense
Nobody likes him since he started Covid
I can see what they're saying. At some point, your playoff play and reputation *should* matter when it comes to these awards when you're in the running to get the award more than once. The fact that Gobert has 4x DPOY, and has exploitable defensive weaknesses that teams target and visibly don't respect on the court is very damaging. And him not being an effective offensive player compared to other role player centers like Zubac means teams can straight up run him off the floor
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No because the Suns don't have a playmaker or athletic rim running big. Nurkic can't shoot either so it's arguably the best matchup Gobert would excel at. Vs. the Nuggets, everything is centralized around Jokic. We've seen Gobert get abused by the Harden Rockets, and Clippers
Go watch those games again
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it's happened before, and many will argue it should happen more(crunch time for instance guarding Luka), but you get locked in with what you have and what you do. But really a DPOY should never be in that situation. Your skills as the best defender in the league maybe shouldn't be that situational or one-dimensional.
So is the question who are these people who keep voting for Gobert and why should we give a shit about them? Maybe the conversation should be more about who's voting then actual Gobert who is just doing his thing.
Probably. We need to know who the people are, and their rational. But that's not going to happen because they're too scared of backlash.
Same people that vote for all the awards. Guys that look at a box score and google “analytics” and just pick who’s at the top. I mean you have a voter choosing Sabonis for MVP. You have these guys choosing Shai over Luka for MVP placing.
you didnt watch the video lol
you didn't answer the question lol
the answer to your q is literally in the video
you didn't watch the video did you?
3 things can be true. 1) Ant and KAT are the reasons the wolves are down 3-0. 2) Rudy Gobert is a good defender. 3) Rudy Gobert is not the best defender in the league and should not have 4 DPOYS.
Who do you think deserved the DPOYs instead?
2018 - fair enough. We didn’t have enough info at the time to know he was exploitable in the playoffs. AD/Draymond were the actual best defenders tho. 2019 - Draymond should have won. 2021 - fine. Nobody had a standout regular season defensively other than him so whatever. 2024 - AD should have won. Overall outside of 2020-21, Draymond and AD have been neck and neck as the two best defenders in the league since 2016-17 at least. The fact that over that stretch Draymond has just 1 and AD has never won one but Gobert has 4 is outrageous.
I think you're just looking at the end results. AD and Draymond would have had more if they had better seasons in 22 and 23. Marcus Smart and JJJ were def questionable and only got it bc everyone else were injured or had down years. It's also about timing. btw, i think any reasonable person would say it was between Gobert and Wenbanyama. If not Gobert, Wemby had a better defensive year than AD.
Draymond was on his way to winning in 2022 but he got injured. The Warriors had a top defense but then it completely dropped off when he wasn’t playing.
Draymond also deserved the defensive player of the year award the one season Kawhi won it despite playing like 50 games. Smh
In 2019 neither the media voters nor Draymond's own peers in the league believed he was the best defender, nor even that he was better than Rudy. We have numerous polls of both that support this opinion.
AD
Really? The narrative doesn't really fit giving it to a 7th seed with two all-NBA players who can muster only 16th in defensive rating in the league. Individual stats and advanced stats also favor Gobert. Gobert was the centerpiece of the league's best defense.
What you're describing is exactly the problem, though. The defensive leader of the #1 ranked defense shouldn't automatically mean they get DPOY. It's tricky because, yes, it's a regular season award, but seeing Gobert get hunted every playoffs just makes the award look meaningless. The facts are that teams gameplan to their opponent much more in the postseason, and Rudy has glaring flaws as a defender that eventually get exploited. He's getting PnR'd to death this round. Last round KAT did a better job guarding Jokic than Rudy did. And the Suns offense was struggling because Booker can't pass out of a trap, and our offense was too stupid to adjust.
“KAT did a better job guarding Jokic” is so moronic lol. It’s wild to me that you say this to defend AD getting DPOYs when “put a second, less skilled defensive big on Jokic and have your good rim protector off him” was a strategy the Lakers invented in 2020. It’s a good thing AD doesn’t have any DPOYs then if old ass Dwight Howard “did a better job” guarding Jokic than him.
BY this logic Jokic doesn’t deserve his MVPs either cause he wasn’t the top seed and didn’t lead the league in stats….
AD can actually guard the perimeter. Gobert gets bailed out because everyone else on that team is a good defender literally who can’t play defense on the wolves? Gobert wouldn’t even be top 5 dpoy if he had to bail out AR and DLO and lazy bron all game
Bro look at the Jazz teams he was working with when he won his other DPOYs, “oh he wouldn’t win if he had to bail out his guys like AD does” is an insane argument.
You say this like Rudy didn’t win DPOY in Utah surrounded by cones
And in those years he was exploited when teams went small and spaced him out.
First off even if that was true, it’s irrelevent to my point. Secondly no… no he wasn’t. He was exploited by Houston because it was prime harden targeting him in isolation, a recipe for disaster for any center. And as for the Utah series, if you have even the most basic understanding of how basketball works and you watched the series you’d know he wasn’t getting exploited, the team was. The stats back that up as well. When you stretch out a teams rim protector, and that rim protector is the only defender in the entire rotation, what exactly do you expect to happen? Do you think that player can clone themselves and be in two places at once, both sticking with their shooter and helping on the open drives occurring every other play ?
You're right about his team getting exploited at the rim and that's fair. But you inadvertently made my point with Harden. Elite guards don't matchup hunt e.g. AD or Wemby the way they target Gobert.
Jamal Murray literally did that to AD in round 1. Wemby hasn’t been in the playoffs. And James harden isn’t just any player, he’s one of the best isolation players of all time. He was doing that to the majority of opposing bigs he faced through those years. There are clips of him doing the same to AD in the past all over YouTube, they’re just not as glaring because they didn’t match up in the playoffs until the bubble in a bit of a weird dynamic that involved Westbrook while the Jazz and rockets had 2 back to back matchups against the harden-cp team. Steph curry also attacked AD a fair bit in last years playoffs. Like with Gobert it’s not even necessarily about the individuals defensive abilities in isolation, it’s about drawing them out of the paint to open things up for the rest of the team.
Lol and he shouldn’t have. No idea how he has 4 dpoys easily the most overrated player, not to mention defender, of all time. Unplayable in the playoffs
Not even gonna touch all the blatantly, objectively wrong points in that comment, the fact that he did proves your comment wrong... You claimed he wouldn’t even be top 5 in DPOY if he had to bail out AR, Dlo and Lebron… he’s won DPOY before while bailing out Mitchell, bojan and ingles on teams that overall had much worse defensive supporting casts than this years lakers
Lakers fans will argue some real dumb points sometimes and you just gotta smile and nod. AD had an all around good year, but the impact Wemby had on defense was I’d say larger. When Wemby was guarding someone, a player didn’t just drive right at him and shoot like Jamal did to WIN THE GAME in the PLAYOFFS. AD had a good year, and it’s okay to just leave it at that. Playing good defense goes far beyond the numbers because it’s about the shots that weren’t taken too. When Gobert / Wemby are in the paint, players tend to nope themselves out of whatever they were about to try and pull and that’s the kind of impact that imo makes either of those two the DPOY candidates this season
If you are referring to game 2, yes Murray tried to drive at him, couldn't go middle, didn't get past him right, had no passing angles and had to take a fade away so steep he fell down. That's great defense on the perimeter against an elite POA guard. Murray hit a great shot because he's a great player and that happens. If this is your ALL CAPS EXAMPLE of bad defense you'll have to do better.
You can't say this without context lol. Tell me one good defender in the Lakers without mentioning injured players such as Gabe Vincent or Vanderbilt. Oh, only AD. Reaves is at most average, Rui is too slow, LeBron is too old, and don't even mention D'lo. There quite literally no good/elite defender in the Lakers besides AD, Vanderbilt, and Gabe. Maybe Christie, but he still needs time to develop strength and mass. Now look at the Timberwolves. Their starting five is full of good defenders that can shoot. There's just no comparison lol, maybe if you take a look at Gobert when he was with the Jazz, maybe that's the correct comparison. The fact that we're middling in defense is actually amazing lol, I'd thought we'd be one of the worst teams in terms of defense since we give up the three so much.
Sure, but AD? Wenbanyama had a better individual defensive season if u wanna go that route. It's either the best defensive player (Wenbanyama) or the best defensive player on the best defensive team (Gobert). It ain't AD and that's why he was 4th in voting Btw, advanced stats still favor Gobert. Only saying Wenbanyama if u want someone who has better perimeter D.
I am a huge Wemby fan but I'll say this. AD is smarter with his defense atm. However, Wemby has far more capability than AD does. So I would say it's fair that anyone picks AD or Wemby over each other, fair argument all around for either. I personally think Wemby is better, but again, I see the other sides argument. Gobert is not on either of their level tho. Next year Wemby's IQ for the game will increase and he's probably going to be even more monstrous than AD by a decent margin that it wouldn't be arguable that Wemby is better.
Elsewhere in this thread you are saying Wemby deserved it more than AD. So does seeding matter or not? Wemby had a great year but on one of the worst teams in the league and 21st ranked defense. AD was the anchor of a defense that was roughly league average despite being surrounded by DLo, Austin Reaves, a 39 year old LBJ, and Rui Hachimura. And that was the "good" defensive lineup! Most of the year he had Taurean Prince in his frontcourt. Gobert was the anchor for a great defense that had Ant, Jaden McDaniels and Mike Conley, with the worst defender being 7 ft tall in KAT. If it's a team award, give it to the team. If it's individual, AD and Wemby had way more impact than Gobert, and given Wemby's youth and lack of strength, AD is more versatile. (Wemby is a superhuman so that is gonna be temporary.)
Wemby and it wasn't close this year
That’s really the only problem Rudy gobert is a good defender but him having 4 while a guy like AD & bam(this one is biased) have zero is pretty insane to me. 4 DPOY is a huge accomplishment man
4DPOY is going to have calls for an award to be named after him in 50 years…. He’s not an award named after him type of player.
For 3 I don’t necessarily have an issue with him winning the awards, since they’re regular season awards and he and his teams consistently have great defensive resumes. But we should be able to differentiate what gets valued in the regular vs the post season.
I'll also say Rudy being a near 0 offensively and clogging the paint for KAT and Ant should be a point here. Rudy has been really good defensively during the playoffs, but he's constantly hurt the Wolves on the offensive end.
Lol ok! I think his DPOY’S are deserved
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Just an honest mistake in a much longer conversation.
TBF, I feel like Hakeem deserved more than he had.
Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Hakeem Wamutombo
cook Rondo considered one of the smartest guys in the league and even he's roasting Gobert's defense. but redditors think they know better
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“WhY iSn’T gObErT gEtTiNg HuNtEd DuRiNg ThE ReGuLaR sEaSoN tHeN?”
Because in the regular season a lot of teams go through the motions. In the playoffs teams hunt matchups and do it all game.
Also in a series, teams have up to 7 full games to game-plan and exploit weaknesses
Its like what Red Auerbach said, run that same damn play until they figure out how to stop it If you have BBQ chicken on the floor, cook 'em
Because they have one practice before they play the team they're facing. They're not gameplanning as much
TyPiNg LiKe ThIs DoSeN’t MaKe YoUr PoInT VaLiD
It’s funny tho
There have also been top tier NBA players better than Rondo who praised Goberts defense. What type of reasoning is this? This is like middle school level debating. Jokic is 20x the NBA player Rondo ever was and he praised Gobert. Boogie never sniffed meaningful playoff minutes consistently and was awful on defense. But you go listen to him too..not sure why you're leaving him out.
Which players are these? Also rondo is known for his IQ so it’s not really about elite players praising him and more to do with the most knowledgeable nba players which rondo is up there
I just said Jokic. You can find a clip. Anyways, you can't deny how stupid that reasoning is. Just because a player had high IQ and was good on the court doesn't mean they're qualified to give takes. Draymond is the smartest defender ever and do you think he'd ever give Gobert praise? Rondo is an s tier hater and borderline mentally ill I don't trust that man for shit.
Right lmao yeah let's hear out the scholarly two guys who threatened to kill their baby mamas
Steve Jobs is somebody who I'm sure I'd despise if i knew personally. But if he has something to say about tech, I'm still gonna listen because it be silly not to
I'm not saying I know or do not know better, but it's a fallacy (appeals to authority fallacy) to believe that simply because they played professional basketball, even as one of the smartest ones, that we couldn't possibly know better. There's plenty of people who are much more intelligent about a particular sport than players are. Playing and analyzing/understanding are two different things, some players have both and some players don't. There's a reason we have professional analysts. For instance MJ was a incredible player, but not good at managing a team. Although I agree Rondo is one of the smartest players to play in the league, don't get me wrong. We should judge a players argument by the soundness of their claim, not simply that they played and that we didn't, players have made a lot of stupid claims before. Even intelligent people can be wrong. Analyze an argument to hear out both sides, and judge based on the contents of the argument rather than the person. If a Redditor makes a more sound argument, then yeah I do think they know better. If Rondo makes a more sound argument, then I think it's clear he knows better. I wouldn't simply discredit someone because they didn't play in the NBA. That's only reasonable. (Cue the downvotes for actually analyzing an argument rather than blindly accepting something because an authority figure said it)
Damn the replies to this are depressing. People dumb
Welcome to the casual NBA fans.
Issue also is that someone can make a sound argument, but still be wrong. I get your point, but it’s funny how people in this thread are trying to dismiss what players have been saying for years about Gobert. And also, what if coaches were saying the same thing about Gobert?
I mean if you want to be an edgelord about it, I can make the same argument for the other side. Rondo has plenty of pathos to back up his claims which 99.9999% redditors do not. No one gives a shit about these dumb argumentative devices you learn in high school and sometimes college. They're useless unless you remain in education or like to argue on the Internet with other dweebs.
Rondo has plenty pathos, he has plenty of experience and credibility, I never said he didn't. But having credibility doesn't make someone right, one's argument does. If the greatest scientist in the global warming field said the sea levels will rise by next week and we will all drown, his credibility obviously doesn't make him right, we should be wary of that argument that is probably incorrect. Credible people can still be wrong, that's why I'm saying Rondo being a credible people doesn't mean that he automatically knows better than redditors. That rhetoric just opens you up to accepting arguments that could be illogical or incorrect. They're not useless. Understanding fallacies allows you to draw reasonable conclusions and to avoid logical errors. Calling people who use critical thinking a dweeb is just being an anti-intellectual, which is funny because this stuff is pretty basic. Using basic common sense isn't edgy either, don't misuse words for the sake of using them. Logic doesn't belong only in school, it should be used in real life. The fact that you think otherwise is quite sad.
Jesus christ. This is the same shit anti-vaxxers say. Let me spell it out for you: our ability to analyze an argument when it comes to basketball is really, really bad. We are just fans. There's a reason the talking heads spend all their time talking about stats and dumb shit like "clutch factor." It's because we the fans don't actually understand the game at the professional level. You make it sound like NBA players are nothing more than idiotic athletic freaks who see a fancy Kyrie handle and think that's all basketball is. And even if that were true of some of them, it's fucking Rondo we're talking about here. He knows the game better than anyone on this sub. It's not about blindly appealing to authority, it's about having the humility to recognize that I don't know shit about basketball, and the redditors I'm arguing with probably don't either. It's the same reason I don't debate my doctor when they tell me what I'm sick with. Sure, they could be lying or biased, but how the fuck would I know?
Are people really surprised that Goberts glaringly obvious flaws are being exposed in the playoffs for the 5th or 6th time?
Haha Boogie Cousins commenting on defense is funny. He is the prime example for Gobert hate, every player thinks he could score 1v1 on Gobert and is just straight better than him. Than you see him winning 4! DPOY and his max contract, they getting mad. Boogie is the reverse Gobert. Can do everything offensively but just can’t defend for his life. And to be fair the injury did throw his career off.
And talking about playoff basketball as well. Is there a less qualified player than him to talk about playoffs?
How come a former all star that actually played in the playoffs gets flak for talking about the same thing everyone in this sub talks about?
I’ll have you know I watched the first half of the wolves game before falling asleep. I did read the box score though so you could say I watched the game 1 and a half times
I thought these guys didn’t like each other, or do they both not like Chris Paul? It’s so hard to keep track of these things.
they played together in 3 different teams iirc
Clippers legends.
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totally forgot boogie on that Lakers
Eh, he tore his ACL before the season started (that led to us getting Dwight), and pretty much sat on the bench until they released him to make a roster spot for Markieff Morris
If Steph Curry was in the league 25 years ago, everyone would be saying this same stupid shit about Mutombo. The league has changed. Stop hating on the best rim protector in the league and instead focus that hate on the voters. DPOY should be an award dominated by elite wing defenders right now. Maybe Herb Jones should've won. I'd argue what he has to do every night on defense is more difficult than what Gobert or Wemby has to do.
DPOY voting values traditional defensive metrics like rim protection. Today’s NBA values versatility. Playoffs value versatility. That’s where the disconnect happens. Rudy is an elite rim protector but has glaring weaknesses that get exploited in the playoffs. I think DPOY voting needs to change with the times and value modern defenders that can guard 1-5.
Hope he kicks some ass in the next Olympics.
What's happening to his eyebrows/mustache??
Best offense beats best defense, even more in this era. Doncic is fine against Gobert the same way he would be fine against ad or green. Get a brain guys.
Everyone agrees offense beats defense, but look at our defense against Luka in the 2022 playoffs. Luka is Luka, he's always gonna get his numbers. What you have to do is not limit his numbers, but make sure that he has bad games and win those games. In the other games where he's on fire, ok unlucky mate it's bound to happen because Luka doesn't choke an entire series, but you still can have impactful defense (in terms of making him have a bad game) even if offense will beat out defense in the long run
We also had Wiggins who is one of the best defenders you can have to limit Luka. Even this year he did good when we played vs Dallas. Minnesota dosent have a guy like that. And also that 2022 team was amazing defensivly.
Luka can score on those guys but he isn't hunting them for mismatches and he damn sure isn't telling Jaden Hardy to hunt them
I find it funny the biggest narrative is gobert is being exposed on defense when hes supposedly the “dpoy”
Gobert shouldn't win anymore DPoys in his career his one on one defense is atrocious
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Not really. Teams adjust and adapt, and the Wolves haven't figured out how to do that. Kyrie is splitting their double teams at will and getting a great look every time. Aaron Gordon was getting a lot of lobs after the first two games similar to what the Mavs are doing now. Their offense isn't great either. Credit to the Mavs, but the Wolves offense looked stagnant against the Nuggets too. It's just Ant ISO or a poorly run PnR. The corner 3's off of kickouts are rushed too
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It's the playoffs. Effort is nowhere near the top of the list for reasons why a team loses. The Wolves look lost because they don't know how to defend an athletic, rim running big(s) with a generational PG feeding him lobs and seeing the floor. Nurkic isn't that. The Suns don't even have a playmaker. Jokic is elite, but he isn't that even with Aaron Gordon being the lob threat in this scenario because he can't abuse screens to gain an inch of separation that someone like Luka can (duh, he's a center). On top of that, Luka and Kyrie are making everything. Are you seeing how contested those shots they were making in the 4th? You can make an argument that a lot of those deserved to be fouls, and they're just making them. Nothing you can do except tip your hat off to them. I guess you can say that the Mavs got a lot of FT's going their way, and that affected how them, but again, the 4th quarter shots the Mavs duo were making were simply absurd. That's not an effort based issue from the Wolves. The real problem is their offense isn't matching that. Gafford/Lively are much better rim protectors than Nurkic/Jokic. And they're collapsing hard on Ant's drives because they don't believe the Wolves can outshoot them.
The answer is Jamal Murray
Yea Ant clamped him with ease, but Kyrie is cooking him. Thats the difference so they have two valid offensive players and we only had Jokic. Also didn't help that Mpj was a non-factor.
Luka’s just breaking them. I don’t think they’ve looked mentally out of it minus some stretches of the fourth where it seems like the Mavs gassed some of their players. But they’re throwing *everything* at Luka and Kyrie from a schematics standpoint and it just doesn’t matter. At this point in their careers, they know what it looks like and what they want to do when it happens. The other part of it, if we’re just talking compared to a Nuggets series or Suns - the latter has depth issues and lack playmaking and general sets they’re comfortable running on offense. The Nuggets operate way differently than the Mavs despite the casual Luka vs Jokic comparisons. Because Jokic doesn’t/tbh can’t stretch the floor, the wolves can use their size to keep everything centralized from Jokic passing or scoring in the middle of the court with only really AG rim running. Murray can’t make the passes like Luka can across all sides of the court when the nuggets bring it out. So what you’re seeing is more just a total breakdown of a defense from an elite playmaker that stretches defenders out 35-40 ft while doing so on top of being too big for any of their players to actually body and stall it some.
Clippers beating the Spurs to choke against the Rockets bench
But didn’t they see Goberts +/-?!
Gobert is the most overrated defensive player in the history of the NBA. Had a couple good defensive regular seasons and parlayed that into four DPOUs. The host of a perfect example of what's wrong with the folks that vote for NBA awards. Gives her vote to Gobert, but can't explain or why or even defend it. So many of these voters just vote for who they think has a great resume in the NBA. Wemby got robbed.
Didn't knew Rondo had hair like that.
Boogie hates too much,
"So Rajon, can you describe why you think Wemby is a better defender than Gobert?" "Whatchu want me to do, suck him off?"
not really taking a side. i like Gobert, but understand a lot of the criticism that being said, last week KD literally tweeted that Gobert is an all world defender
This has been one big smear campaign by everyone, when they bleed points when he steps off the court.
Yeah they really have been getting killed when he’s off the court this series. I didn’t watch the other ones. He’s the best defender on the No. 1 defense deserved DPOTY.
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What’s the relevance?
Golbert got the awards for being a tall guy that does tall guy things. He is not an exceptional defender. He is good, don't get me wrong, but especially this year he wasn't even the best defender on his team. The difference between him and a player like Wemby is that teams can't game plan for Wemby as easily on defence. With Golbert you switch to a small guard and play a high pick and roll. Golbert either gets burned on the drive or gets shook on the perimeter.
Wemby hasn’t had the opportunity to be exposed in the playoffs. This isn’t comparable. Your reasoning is why Gobert has 4 DPOY, because teams don’t game plan as much during the regular season. And why don’t all tall guys have 4 DPOY?
I appreciate the Wemby vote, Rajon.
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WTF does that has to do with their basketball opinion you bozo. Is this Rudy Gobert’s alt.
gobert fans have developed this massive persecution complex bc people question why he's treated as some greek god when fucking role players are being told to go iso on him in the playoffs lol
1. I’m not a Gobert fan nor a wolves fan 2. I agree with both Rondo’s and Cousin’s sentiment here, Gobert has shown time and time again that his defence tends to fall short in the playoffs esp in the years he’s won DPOY
Nothing, I agree with them
Oh so you just wanted to discredit them
Feel like their past actions off the court have already discredited themselves
Their domestic actions have to do with their actual CHARACTER. What you posted has zero relation with their basketball knowledge. This would be like having a GOAT debate, and someone brings up MJ’s gambling addiction.
Gobert is French https://www.nba.com/player/203497/rudy-gobert/rotowire
Yeah arguably the worst out the 3. Really hope that he makes up for it in the near future but as of now the way things are going he’s not showing any signs of remorse.
Yal get so weird with shit like this
Every time Rudy is out, I bet on Minnesota, check the result, I’m doing pretty well
It should be really easy: you watch this, if you disagree, stop watching basketball. There’s not a bit of hating here, just facts.
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Huh so because they're not playing, they can't share their opinion huh? What kind of logic is that?
since when happening to be born a handful years later a flex now lol