When most people hear a sentence like “I’m excited about this summer because I think it’s gonna be my best summer. … I can really plan on having the best summer I’ve ever had,” they likely get a rush of nostalgia. They might think of hitting summer break in grade school, signing up for overnight summer camps that they can attend with friends, embracing a careless homework-free life. They may find themselves thinking about their first year moving out of their parent’s house, when everything they do becomes almost completely their choice for the first time and can party unsupervised any day of the week. Or perhaps it’s memories of turning 21, and finally having the ability to access any business in the world — bars, nightclubs, liquor stores, you name it. Everything but renting a car.
Not Rudy Gobert. When he thinks about having his best summer ever, he thinks about getting in the gym. Of course, because he was speaking in the context of his career, and because he’s a professional basketball player, that’s really not that much of a surprise. At the very least, it’s what you hope for as a fan of the team. Kobe Bryant famously talked about trying to add one new skill to his bag every off season in an attempt to never stop getting better.
Still not every player hits the gym hard in the summer, and for good reason. Eating, drinking, sleeping basketball for 365 days a year would get exhausting, especially when the 82-game regular season is so intense and tough on players’ bodies. Everybody deserves a vacation, and rest and rehab are very necessary. Some players, especially those who already have gigantic max contracts, tend to embrace the offseason as more of a vacation than others. Anthony Davis admitted last year that he didn’t shoot a basketball for about two months last offseason, much to Los Angeles Lakers fans and his critics’ chagrin. Of course, when you’re a player of AD’s caliber, taking a few months off in the summer is not going to stop you from being a one man wrecking crew come May of the next year.
In fact, working out, or at the very least playing too much basketball, may be just as detrimental for a player’s NBA season in some ways. At the very least, it presents players with more opportunities to get injured. Chet Holmgren got injured in a Pro-Am game last offseason and had to miss the entire NBA season. He didn’t get hurt because he’s frail, but because LeBron James showed up. The ensuing crowd was so big that the gym couldn’t handle the heat, and the floor became slippery with condensation. Truly weird stuff.
Last summer was hectic for Gobert. He played for the French national team in EuroBasket 2022, and led his team to the finals where they lost to Spain. While I’m sure this was a great achievement for Rudy in many ways, it had an adverse effect on his first season in Minnesota. Gobert admitted as much. During his exit interview, he suggested that a number of factors created adversity for him during the season including “coming into a new organization, landing a couple days before training camp from playing for the French National team. … I mean a lot of things that — a couple injuries and things that I was dealing with, moving and getting to start training camp not being able to be 100%.”
While these are all valid reasons why he didn’t play to his potential, Gobert could have prevented some of the adversity by taking more of the summer off. It seems that players genuinely need to split the difference between staying in shape and giving their bodies a chance to relax and rehab during the summer. Gobert was a step slow by the eye test at the beginning of the season, yet became much closer to the defensive monster he was in Utah in the playoffs. The injuries that he referenced in the press conference didn’t stop him from playing 70 games during the regular season. However, it seemed to affect his ability to be at his best. Gobert averaged 3.1 rebounds, 0.7 blocks, and 2.2 points less than his prior season in Utah, and shot much less efficiently.
So what does Rudy Gobert having the best summer of his career actually entail? How can Rudy go from normal Rudy, to the best Rudy he’s ever been, or at the very least get back to his defensive peak?
Unfortunately for Gobert, the first step is not playing professional basketball in the offseason. That’s going to be tough for him, because he seems to care a lot about the French National Basketball team. However, as we saw throughout the season, a healthy Gobzilla can make you a top-10 defense in the league, even if he’s not used to his new teammates and Minnesota’s system. On the opposite end, an unhealthy Rudy playing through pain isn’t able to be as effective. In Game 82 against the New Orleans Pelicans, Gobert was a net negative to the team, and apparently a liability to start a fistfight. Because of this, it seems imperative (at least for the Wolves’ sake) that Rudy takes the time to get healthy this off season, and takes a year off from the French National team.
The good news — or perhaps more accurately, neutral news — is that when a reporter asked if he was going to play for the French National team this year, Rudy responded, “I’m not sure yet. I think I’m going to take a couple days to reflect and clear my mind [before I] really make those decisions.”
Beyond that, though, there’s a lot of other things Rudy could do to improve his game this offseason, especially if he’s able to add a few offensive skills to his bag. Gobert also spoke on this during his exit interview saying he wants to “reach that level that I’ve been able to tap in but not consistently yet in terms of finishing, in terms of being able to really be as dominant as I know I can become. Really be able to reach my full potential. I know I have more gears that I can get to, and that’s why it’s exciting for me.”
It would be amazing to see Rudy work on his finishing game this summer. We know he can dunk the ball with ease if he gets an offensive rebound or gets a pass in the right spot. But it would be even better if he could expand his game to score from more places. While we would occasionally see Gobert get the ball at the top of the key and do a dribble move that would get him free to the basket, it was very rare.
He needs to work with Chris Finch, who’s known for building an offense around what a player is comfortable with and helping them accentuate those habits to refine them in a positive manner. If Gobert is able to work on a few sets with Finch this offseason, or even work on a few post spin moves, it could do wonders for the Minnesota’s ability to punish smaller teams on offense.
It would also be amazing if Gobert and Anthony Edwards could do a handful of practices that focus on developing some elements of their two-man game. Ant is a young player, and they didn’t develop chemistry immediately this year. Furthermore, it wasn’t worth risking turnovers and wins trying to develop it during games. Additionally, if Rudy could add a corner three to his game, it would be a dream come true, even if he only hits it 25% of the time.
Beyond the lofty goals of Gobert adding dribble moves to his bag, a fully healthy Gobert could right many of the the things that looked wrong last year. He can still make Tim Connelly’s two-big dreams look like a stroke of genius. If the Wolves get a healthy Stifel Tower next year, it will likely make a world of difference for the team’s ability to improve their regular season record and make a legitimate run in the playoffs next year.
A team that has been bad defensively since the Kevin Garnett era ended achieved a top-10 defense with Gobert despite struggling a ton in the early season, and struggling in transition the whole the season. On the opposite end, Edwards has proved that he can carry the team to victories even when no one else is clicking offensively that night. Let’s hope Gobert has his best summer ever, and as a result his best season ever next year. But truly, the vintage French Rejection is all the Wolves need to succeed.
