When the Minnesota Timberwolves traded for Rudy Gobert, they raised their ceiling.
No, not literally.
They didn’t raise the ceilings in the hallways of their practice facility, although they probably should have to accommodate Gobert’s over seven-foot frame. Instead, the Timberwolves raised their figurative ceiling — morphing from an afterthought in the West to a contender.
Before he arrived, the Wolves had to scrap and claw just to make the playoffs. Reaching the playoffs alone was an accomplishment for a franchise with dark postseason history. However, when Gobert landed in Minnesota, the Wolves immediately entered a win-now mode. Three years later, they’ve made the playoffs in each season and have appeared in two Conference Finals.
Gobert didn’t raise Minnesota’s ceiling from playoff hopefuls to championship contenders by himself. Still, he has been a load-bearing pillar holding up a ceiling that stands much taller than he. But the pillar may not be as sound as it once was. As a result, Minnesota’s ceiling may not be as high as it could be.
Gobert is entering his 13th year in the NBA. He’s an old-school, lob-catching big man in a league that is increasingly moving away from favoring that type of player. For a Wolves team that has a chance to win a championship now, one question looms large.
Can the Timberwolves win a championship with Gobert as their starting center?
Hours before the Wolves opened their 2024-25 season in Los Angeles, they extended Gobert on a three-year, $110 million contract. Gobert opted out of his player option for the 2025-26 season, which would have paid him $46.6 million to give Minnesota more financial flexibility.
Gobert’s new deal may be more team-friendly than his player option this year would have been, but he still occupies 22.6% of their cap space entering the 2025-26 season, making him their second-most expensive player. Timberwolves brass extending Gobert when they did was an understandable measure of faith, locking up the reigning DPOY who helped change Minnesota’s culture.
The Wolves were the NBA’s best defensive team — by a lot — in 2023-24. Four players were connected on a single string, flying around the perimeter at a relentless speed that would tire out even the best of offenses. If an opposing player were to get past Minnesota’s first line of defense, they would be met by the stifle tower. The anchor and the load-bearing pillar. The immovable force inside the restricted area.
Whatever analogy you want to use to describe Gobert’s season, he was the most impactful defensive player on the best defensive team. That’s why he won the DPOY award.
Last season, Gobert’s defensive impact mirrored that level, even though the Wolves finished the regular season with the sixth-ranked defensive rating (110.8) and Gobert finished with one third-place vote for DPOY.
In the 2,388 regular-season minutes with Gobert on the court, Minnesota had a 109.7 defensive rating. In the 1,578 minutes with him off, Minnesota’s defensive rating was 114.6.
Hall of Fame-level defense. That’s what the Wolves knew they were getting when they traded for Gobert, and that’s what he’s given them every day. He’s a career 12-point-per-game scorer, but that hasn’t stopped him from becoming a three-time All-Star. And much to Shaquille O’Neal’s chagrin, Gobert will probably join him in the Hall of Fame.
When talking about Gobert’s greatness, it’s never been about the offense. However, the knock on his Hall of Fame resume has been, and always will be, his offensive limitations.
When you boil it down, Gobert is an offensive weapon capable of leading his team in scoring. However, the conditions must be right for that to happen. Gobert needs players around him who know when and where to pass him the ball. He also needs something the opponent does, doesn’t do or doesn’t have to go his way.
Those are all things that Gobert can’t control.
253 games through Gobert’s tenure in Minnesota, the Wolves have not been consistently on the same page as their big man. D’Angelo Russell struggled to play with Gobert in 2022-23, so Tim Connelly replaced him with Mike Conley in the starting lineup. Conley joined Kyle Anderson as the only players on Minnesota’s roster capable of repeatedly finding Gobert in positions where he could score. Two years later, that has mostly remained true.
In addition to Anderson, Karl-Anthony Towns had a sneakily good partnership with Gobert. The two of them would run 4-5 pick-and-rolls, and Towns is an effective lob passer. However, Anderson is playing for the Utah Jazz, and Towns is in New York.
Ideally, Anthony Edwards would have taken a step forward in his lob passing abilities after Anderson and Towns left last off-season. He penetrates the paint more than any player on the Wolves, so efficiently tossing lobs to Gobert would be a great way to expand the offense. However, Edwards is still learning how to become an effective lob passer.
That’s fine. Edwards is still young, and his offensive brilliance more than makes up for his lob-throwing deficiencies right now. However, his brilliance has defenses spending most of their energy trying to contain him, sending multiple defenders his way off nearly every ball screen.
This is where Gobert needs to take control over his offense. It’s where he needs to improve if the Wolves hope to win a championship with him on the roster. He doesn’t need to rebuild his skillset, but he does need to do something he has yet to show he can do in a Wolves uniform.
Gobert must become a threat to score in the short roll — the space inside the free throw line, but above the restricted area. The space where Gobert can’t dunk or flip in a layup from, but also doesn’t need to shoot the ball uniformly.
NBA skills trainer Leather Shooter (Chris Matthews) posted a clip of Gobert working on his short-range game. Despite the routinely adverse reaction in the comments, Gobert adding a somewhat consistent floater to his repertoire would transcend — yes, transcend — Minnesota’s offense. It would also raise Minnesota’s ceiling higher than it’s ever been with Gobert on the roster.
Adding a floater is small in the grand scale of things, but it’s something Gobert can control.
Gobert is a smart passer, especially out of the short roll. But because he isn’t a threat to score the ball outside of the restricted area, it changes how opponents defend the Wolves.
When Minnesota runs a high pick-and-roll (a few feet behind the three-point line) with Edwards as the ball handler and Gobert as the screener, the two defenders engaged in the action will blitz Ant. That forces the ball out of his hand. If he passes to Gobert at the free-throw line, he’s a non-factor, and the play blows up in Minnesota’s face.
Gobert being a threat to flip in a floater will fix that issue.
There have been and will always be uncontrollable factors that Gobert must maneuver through. There is no denying his defensive greatness, but his hands are tied offensively. Even if Edwards becomes a productive lob thrower, joining Conley and the productive point forward that Julius Randle is, Gobert will meet a matchup that doesn’t benefit his playstyle.
We saw that happen in the playoffs this year. Whether it was Minnesota’s opponent having a smaller, faster team, or they schemed in a way that targeted Gobert, they played him off the court a few times. That’s a harsh reality for a player with a Hall of Fame resume. It’s also a harsh reality for a team that has championship aspirations.
A bad matchup that plays your starting center off the court could lower your ceiling. However, a good chunk of playoff success comes down to the luck of the draw. Certain matchups favor certain teams, regardless of their makeup. So the situation the Wolves are in is not necessarily unique to them. Four “good” matchups for Gobert in the playoffs, and he could be the constant offensive force that is the backbone to a championship run for the Wolves.
But again, that is something Gobert can’t control. Becoming a threat in the 15 to 10-foot range is something he can control. Doing so will strengthen the load-bearing pillar that he is and raise Minnesota’s ceiling higher than ever before.