Rudy Gobert is in the middle of the best season of his career. He’s been the essential part of the Utah Jazz rebuild, leading them to second round playoff runs in back to back seasons. Coming off of Defensive Player of the Year honors, he’s averaging 15.0 points, 13.1 rebounds, 2.2 assists, and 2.1 blocks while recording a true shooting percentage of 66.5%
It’s time he gets an All-Star berth.
Per Game Averages
In NBA history, only 11 times has a player averaged >14 points, >12 rebounds, >2 blocks, and a TS% >60% for an entire season:
- Kareem Abdul Jabbar 2x
- Shaquille O’Neal
- Dwight Howard 4x
- David Robinson
- Artis Gillmore 2x
- Rudy Gobert
Only once was that player not dubbed an All-Star. That unlucky soul was Rudy Gobert. Let’s not let that happen again. He’s not only averaging those numbers again; he’s improved upon them.
Defensive Player of the Year
Only three times in the past 11 years has the defensive player of the year winner not been an All-Star in that same season. Yep, you guessed it. Rudy Gobert was one of them. Another was Kawhi Leonard because he missed 18 of the first 40 games. Marc Gasol also missed out in 2012-2013. Let’s not let that happen again. Gobert is again anchoring a top 5 defense for Utah and is certainly a leading candidate to repeat as DPOY.
Advanced Statistics
Andy Bailey keeps a running list that averages all player ranks according to the following metrics: Real +/-, Real +/- wins, Player Impact +/-, Player Impact +/- wins, Box Plus Minus, Total Points Added, Win Shares per 36 minutes, Win Shares, Game Score per 36 minutes, and Cumulative Game Score.
Rudy Gobert’s average rank from all of those places him 6th overall in the NBA. Every player around him is an unquestioned All-Star. Why shouldn’t Gobert be?
Rudy also shows up on the following statistical leaderboards:
- 3rd in total rebounds
- 2nd in blocks
- 1st in field goal percentage
- 2nd in true shooting percentage
- 2nd in offensive rating
- 3rd in defensive rating
- 1st in win shares
- 8th in box plus/minus
- 5th in value over replacement player
- 7th in player impact plus/minus
If that’s not an All-Star, then I don’t know what is.
All He Does is Dunk
This is a common argument against Rudy Gobert’s offensive impact. First of all, why is that even a bad thing? If you could have a dunk every time down the court, wouldn’t you take it? Rudy does indeed lead the league in dunks with 180 on the season. He’s on pace for 296 dunks, which would break Dwight Howard’s single season record of 269. That’s a big reason why Rudy is leading the league in field goal percentage at over 64%! I’ve never understood how that’s a bad thing.
That’s also not all he does. For example, he leads the league according to our Roll Gravity metric. This means he opens up space for his teammates by demanding so much attention as a pick and roll rim runner. He’s got great hands and (shocker with all those dunks) is excellent finishing around the rim. You have to respect that.
Still not convinced? He also leads the NBA in screen assists and points generated off screens with 6.1 and 14.1, respectively. This might sound simple or unimpressive, but those could viewed reasonably equal to actual assists. In both scenarios, you’re helping set up your teammate to score. He’s getting 6 of those a game on top of his 2 assists he dishes out. This is absolutely a skill of focus and determination to set such effective screens night in and night out.
Speaking of assists, I believe Rudy to be one of the most underrated passing big men in the league. He’s shown this ability at time throughout his career, but his role in the offense has increased this year. He’s making more reads and finding his teammates more successfully than ever before. In his past 15 games alone he’s had 3 games with 5+ assists. He’s definitely not a guy that just dunks.
He’s a Winner
The end all, be all of sports. Winning. If that’s your biggest barometer for an All-Star, then few are more deserving than the former 27th overall pick out of France. Since he entered the league, the Utah Jazz are 171-113 (60%) when he starts and 59-117 (33%) when he doesn’t in the regular season. As reference, the Jazz are exactly 0.500 over that 5.5-year span. He leads the NBA in win shares, and he leads the Jazz to victory. At 6th and moving up in the ever so difficult west, Utah deserves representation in the All-Star Game. Rudy Gobert is that man.
Rudy Gobert is an All-Star.
