Utah's Rudy Gobert reportedly traded to T-Wolves
The Utah Jazz are reportedly trading All-Star center Rudy Gobert to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
According to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, Utah is receiving Malik Beasley, Patrick Beverley, Walker Kessler, Jarred Vanderbilt and multiple first-round picks in the deal.
Gobert, 30, is a three-time All-Star and three-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year (2017-18, 2018-19, 2020-21).
He has averaged 12.4 points, 11.7 rebounds and 2.2 blocks while shooting 65.3% from the field across nine seasons for Utah.
Despite brilliant individual success, the Gobert-Jazz fit was one that began to fizzle out after a number of early playoff exits. The Jazz acquired Donovan Mitchell in a draft-day trade after he was selected 13th overall by Denver in 2017, and a player who was expected to morph into a nice starting piece on a conference contender immediately broke out his starry potential during an All-Rookie first-team showing.
Mitchell and Gobert became a two-man wrecking crew in the West, and behind the direction of head coach Quin Snyder, elevated Utah into one of the conference's most respected regular-season teams.
Emphasis on regular season.
The Jazz were eliminated from playoff contention in the second round of the playoffs after Mitchell's rookie campaign, and the next year, met a similar fate to the same squad (Houston), this time in the first round. Led by James Harden, Houston's shooter-centric offensive approach forced Gobert to bring his potent paint presence out to the perimeter, where his effectiveness saw a stark decrease, and smaller guards exposed his lateral deficiencies.
It became an approach that numerous teams began to employ to quell Utah's bullish defense, and it proved effective, as Utah was eliminated in three subsequent seasons following 2019. Those losses came to Denver, who bolted back from a 3-1 deficit to stop the Jazz in the first round despite multiple 50-point games from Mitchell, the L.A. Clippers and the Dallas Mavericks.
And while the squad's on-court struggles were widely documented, it suffered a tremendous blow to its own locker room during the 2020 season. This came when Gobert playfully spread his hands over a table and microphones during a March press conference in mockery of COVID-19, only to become to first NBA player diagnosed with the virus prior to the league's pause from play.
Mitchell found out shortly after the incident that he'd come down with the virus as well, and his ensuing disdain toward his teammate's actions became a well-noted problem behind Utah's closed doors. Mitchell and Gobert squashed their beef ahead of June's bubble trip, with the former emphasizing they just wanted to focus on "basketball." Nonetheless, a number of media figures questioned their ability to bounce back from the fallout.
Ultimately, Utah's brass deemed the pairing incapable of accomplishing more than they had in the past, and began a new journey with new coach Will Hardy, inking a five-year deal with the former Celtics assistant.
Minnesota, meanwhile, will look to capitalize on its second postseason appearance since 2004 with a formidable twin-towers lineup consisting of Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns (who just re-signed with the team on a four-year, $224 million supermax), promising young forward Jaden McDaniels and the skilled guard pairing of D'Angelo Russell and Anthony Edwards. The Towns signing plus the Gobert trade mark the first moves for new president of basketball operations Tim Connelly, who joined the Wolves from Denver on a five-year, $40 million contract.
Gobert averaged 15.6 points last season on a career-best 71.3% from the floor, while also posting 14.7 rebounds and 2.1 blocks on 32.1 minutes per game.