Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves are currently trying to figure out a way to salvage a Game 4 win on Tuesday night after following behind three games to zero in their Western Conference Finals series vs the Dallas Mavericks. Each game of the series so far has been tightly contested, but the Mavericks have proven to have the best two clutch players on the court in crunch time of each game, and Edwards has seen his efficiency numbers crater thus far in the series.
One person who has been a bizarrely large target of criticism so far in this series has been Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert, who has been far and away their best player in the matchup but still seems to get a large portion of the blame when things don't go according to plan.
Recently, former NBA big man and current uninformed narrative repeater Kendrick Perkins took to ESPN's First Take to break down his take on why Rudy Gobert didn't deserve the Defensive Player of the Year award he won this year.
“I'm retiring from voting… Voting this season for Rudy Gobert is an embarrassment for me for Defensive Player of the Year… He has tarnished the Defensive Player of the Year award. He has. He's not respected by his peers,” said Perkins, via ClutchPoints on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter.
A casual take
One need look no further than the stat sheet to immediately refute everything that Perkins said in his rant. With Gobert on the court in this series, the Timberwolves have posted a very respectable 110.6 defensive rating against a potent Mavericks offense. However, when Gobert has been on the bench, that number balloons to 135.1, far and away the biggest discrepancy on the team.
Gobert also has by far the best defensive rating of any regular member of the Timberwolves rotation so far in the playoffs at 106.9.
Gobert got a ton of criticism during Friday's Game 2 when he was switched onto Mavericks guard Luka Doncic late and eventually had Doncic bury a game winner right in his face. However, the reality of the situation is that there is not a defender on planet earth who can fully stop Doncic from getting to his step back, especially when he is allowed to take four steps, as he did on that play.
The Gobert hatred over the years has been very bizarre, to say the least. Shaquille O'Neal has taken jabs at the big man over jealousy at how much players today are being paid compared to O'Neal's era. Draymond Green has been a regular hater of Gobert's on the Inside the NBA broadcast so far this series due to a previous altercation between the two this year.
As for Perkins, however, his historical record of misinformed takes would suggest that he might be one of those NBA players who slipped through the cracks based on their size and athleticism but never took the time to properly educate themselves on the nuances of the game.
Still, that doesn't clearly doesn't stop him from appearing on national television and firing off misinformed takes aimed at the best defensive player of his generation.
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