Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert is slowly beginning to understand his major importance to the team's success.
While the French international isn't remotely close to being a talented post scorer like other bigs in the league, his role offensively is more of a facilitator, if you will.
“We all hear from our coaches growing up that the guy that sets the screen is the guy that gets open,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder told Aaron Falk of the Salt Lake Tribune. “Well no on
Gobert leads the league in screen-assists, a category now tracked by the NBA to determine how many screens directly lead to a made basket, whether it is a jump shot or an alley to the hoop.
Prior to Sunday's game against the Denver Nuggets, the 7-footer is tied with Marcin Gortat with 5.9 screen-assists per game, followed by Jonas Valanciunas (5.1), Tyson Chandler (5.0) and Cody Zeller (4.7).
“In the offseason and during training camp, Coach really put an emphasis on my screening,” Gobert said. “…I think it's very important for the offense. If I set a screen and my teammate is wide open, I'm happy the same as if I would score.”
“I think some of Rudy's frustrations at times on the offensive end come from not feeling like he's impacting the game,” Snyder said.
But with the NBA now tracking screen-assists, it's been a direct reflection of Gobert's hard work during offensive sets.
“Making Rudy understand how important screening is for our offensive success, those are things that are subtle,” Snyder said. “They're not giving out awards for that. The fact that we're even keeping the stat now as a league is great.”
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