Deep Dive: How Rudy Gobert's Vertical Spacing Boosts Minnesota's Offense
Rudy Gobert may not shoot jumpers, but his presence alone helps his team get better looks.
The gripes about Rudy Gobert aren’t hard to find. The defensive misgivings in the playoffs have circled for years and only grew louder when he was acquired by the Minnesota Timberwolves for a boatload of picks and rotation players. The inability to put the ball on the deck and create his own shot is a flaw that has crippled many a player over the years.
In certain situations, there is no denying that those two imperfections can minimize the enormous impact the big Frenchman has on games with his defensive exploits. However, even in today’s age of incessant long-range launching, the inability to knock down (or even attempt) 3-point shots shouldn’t be something worth losing hairs over for Timberwolves fans.
Gobert does more for an offense’s spacing than most. Thanks to his size and roll-man proficiency, he is the league’s premier vertical spacer. A black hole in the best way, capable of spending entire nights sucking defenders toward him with his rim-dives and freeing his teammates for standstill jumpers.
It almost seems a misnomer, a twisted reality that names a complete and utter non-shooter as one who occupies the very upper echelon of floor-spacers — especially in a league chockfull of outlandish shooters. As he progressed in his career, though, and defenses have become increasingly aware of straddling the line between rim-protection and perimeter defense, Gobert’s teams have lived a life of wide-open luxury behind the arc.
Since the beginning of the 2017-18 season, according to NBA Stats, the Utah Jazz have finished outside of the top five in percentage of 3-point field goals classified as wide open (closest defender being at least six feet away from the shooter) just once — finishing seventh in 2019-20. In the other four seasons, they have finished fifth, first, third and second, with an average of 22.3 percent of their total 3-point makes deemed as wide open across the five-year stretch.
Denying the shooting capabilities of players like Donovan Mitchell, Bojan Bogdanovic, Joe Ingles and Royce O’Neale during that span would be ludicrous, but it’s just as impossible to ignore the Jazz posting those numbers with a 7-foot-1 man mountain on the court. Gobert’s vertical spacing and overall rim gravity have been a key cog in that offensive machine and there is no reason that skill won’t translate directly to the Timberwolves.
In its most basic form, this is how Gobert’s vertical spacing works:
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