Rudy Gobert saw the Utah Jazz, the only team he played for in the NBA since being drafted in 2013, trade him away to the Minnesota Timberwolves after he became a 3-time Defensive Player of the Year and made them a playoff regular for the last 6 seasons alongside Donovan Mitchell.
The trade for Gobert was expected after everyone saw the team’s ceiling crash down on them after a first-round loss to the Dallas Mavericks this season. The Mavs were without Luka Doncic for the first three games, and the Jazz still fell down 2-1 in those 3 games.
Rudy will now play alongside Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards in Minnesota, who themselves fell victims to a first-round exit at the hands of the Memphis Grizzlies. He was unveiled as a Minnesota player earlier today in a press conference where he revealed why he thinks the Jazz traded him away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3PejYSkQnE
“It’s a good question. Obviously, losing Quin (Snyder). Quin was a big part of what we were doing, he had been there for 8 years. Sometimes the window for winning is not always big. For us in Utah, that’s kinda what happened. The organization felt like we had passed the window that we had over the past few years. I think this will be a very competitive team, but they felt, with all the assets they could get for me, that was better for them to go that way. I think it could potentially be a win-win situation. They put me in a great situation to win and for me, I am very grateful for that.”
The split between the Jazz and Gobert seems amicable as there seems to be a mutual understanding that they needed to part ways for the best of both the team and the player.
Minnesota will push towards championship contention now that they have paid a steep price to acquire Gobert. Utah gets to keep the younger Donovan Mitchell and now has a lot of draft assets to retool the team around him and find another version of a contender with a new coach and new roster.
