Jazz say Rudy Gobert's standing reach is now 9-foot-9

Because sometimes being the league's breakout defensive star isn't enough, Rudy Gobert is getting even more terrifying.

The Utah Jazz center is coming off a terrific sophomore campaign, which saw him grow from sparsely-used long-term project to down-ballot Defensive Player of the Year candidate. Gobert's emergence was such that the team jettisoned former No. 3 pick Enes Kanter, and he's now considered a key piece of the core moving forward.

After such an enormous leap on the development curve, expecting more humble advancements at age 23 would be reasonable. But Gobert, already imposing at 7-foot-1 and with a 7-foot-8.5 wingspan, is still growing, and may soon be swatting away dunks without jumping. Citing better posture and joint mobility, Jazz general manager Dennis Lindsey said Gobert recently measured with a 9-foot-9 standing reach.

To put that in perspective, the rim stands 10 feet off the ground, and the longest standing reach ever measured at the draft combine or other camp, per the DraftExpress database, is Pavel Podkolzine's 9-foot-8 reach in 2003. In other words, Gobert comes closer to touching the rim flat-footed than anyone else ever measured.

Beyond rim protection, where Gobert already excels, the reach helps contains ball-handlers in the pick-and-roll, and should make him one of the deadliest lob-catchers in the league. Dante Exum may not even need to improve as a passer if Gobert's reach keeps expanding, and Trey Burke's errant jump-shots could be turned into assists.

Gobert averaged 8.4 points, 9.5 rebounds, 1.3 assists, and 2.3 blocks this season while shooting 60.4 percent from the floor. Expect those to bump even higher in 2015-16.