Rudy Gobert's defensive maturity a season highlight for Jazz
Few players defined on-court maturity this season quite like Utah Jazz youngster Rudy Gobert, who exploded onto the scene in 2014-15 after logging only 434 total minutes as a rookie in 2013-14.
The French big man matched his entire rookie minutes through the first 25 games of his sophomore season, as first-year head coach Quin Snyder unleashed Gobert's unprecedented 7-foot-8.5 wingspan on a helpless Association.
Gobert didn't exactly dominate in his new-found playing time early in the season, but something clicked for the 22-year-old center in December, leaving Snyder no choice but to ride the 7-footer the rest of the way.
| Gobert in 2014-15 | MPG | PPG | RPG | BPG | APG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Games 1-20 | 15.9 | 5 | 5.1 | 1.5 | 0.5 |
| Games 21-82 | 29.7 | 9.5 | 10.9 | 2.6 | 1.6 |
Gobert became a consistent double-digit scorer as the season wore on, shooting better than 60 percent from the field; but that was largely a byproduct of dominating from close range and finishing most plays with dunks and layups. He shot worse than 22 percent outside of three feet.
He remains limited on the offensive end, but taking advantage inside is all that's required when you're as defensively dominant as he was this year, as veteran centers like Tyson Chandler and DeAndre Jordan have proven.
And dominant he was, in ways his base statistics can't describe.
Gobert's 2.3 blocks per game look gaudy enough, but his advanced metrics tell an even more impressive story, as Gobert blocked a league-leading seven percent of all two-point attempts hoisted by the opposition while he was on the floor.
For reference, only 12 players before Gobert this season had ever posted a block percentage of at least 7.0 in a season (minimum 2000 minutes played).
He also held opponents to a league-low 40.4-percent shooting at the rim, according to NBA.com, and was one of only 10 players to post an individual defensive rating under 100, according to Basketball Reference.
You don't earn nicknames like The Stifle Tower and The French Rejection without merit, but Gobert's also a mobile defender capable of switching onto smaller players and competently defending on the perimeter. And he's not a gambler, either, as he's proven to be wise beyond his years on the defensive end.
All of that translated into a Utah team that defended at a bottom-five level with Gobert on the bench (106 points allowed per 100 possessions) suddenly morphing into a top-two-caliber unit (98.8) with the big man patrolling the paint.
Considering his overall defensive impact on a Jazz team that went 32-25 over the final four months of the season, Gobert's absence from the All-Defensive Teams was shocking, and you could have made an argument for him as both a Defensive Player of the Year candidate and the Most Improved Player (he finished in the top five in voting for both).
Most importantly, Gobert's breakout campaign paved the way for Utah to ship the defensive turnstile that is Enes Kanter to Oklahoma City, forging a Gobert-Derrick Favors frontcourt connection that should carry the franchise forward for years to come.
It's rare for a young player to be able to lift the hopes of a franchise with his play on the defensive end, but that's exactly what a more mature Rudy Gobert did for the Jazz in 2014-15.