Why does Rudy Gobert get a pass for not developing his offensive game, but Simmons

[GrayGoat]

Gets crushed for it?

There's been much discussion about how Simmons' refusal to develop a shot is an indictment of his passion, work ethic, and competitiveness in this era of NBA basketball.

Running parallel to all that is the case of Rudy Gobert. Gobert is a unique player in today's game, a center with elite rim-protection but with next to no post game or jump shot.Why does a certain poster always blame his teammates instead of his lack of a developed offensive game?

Rudy's offensive game is one-dimensional, in that he is a paint clogging big who, while elite in the screen game, isn't a threat to get a bucket unless it's facilitated.

[AlternativeAcc.]

Gobert isn't even a good defensive player and has been a liability in the playoffs for years.

He's atrocious on both ends and shouldn't be in the league. Legitimately it's the worst trade ever.

[Kblaze8855]

The paint clogging, defensive, monster big, who can’t be relied on to do much but dunk is pretty common, and in many cases respected. It’s an established and accepted approach to the position. There are many many examples. The best of them like Ben Wallace and Mutombo are hall of fame worthy. They were nothing Rudy isn’t on offense. Mutombo began his career in an era they forced bigs the ball so he scored more out the gate but his general level? He’s not gonna do much Gobert doesn’t. Shutting down the paint has always been much of a centers job people accept and respect specialists at it.

Timelord isn’t gonna do much with the ball and does anyone have a problem with him? If so I never heard it.

Rudy just suffers in public from the expectation that comes with his contract and here…from his main fan.

Ben? Point guards…guards in general…. traditionally have been expected to develop scoring skills. But they also have room to do other things. But there are less examples of stars with that play style. Young Kidd is the closest…or maybe Rondo. Among stars. The guys who just play hard d and don’t look to score tend to be role players who don’t have the body type to really dominate.

Ben is in a superstar body with a backup role players hesitancy to impose his will. He seems to be leaving more in the table than most who choose to play so scared.

But this is where he and Rudy share an issue. Being good enough at what they do to get massive pay but not to play the way people associate that pay with.

You get right down to it they annoy people more than they actually hurt teams.

So much of the heat everyone gets is fans validating opinions formed before the player did whatever it is they’re hating on. Let Ben play this years playoffs and they lose. It will be said you can’t win with a point who is shook and he’s the reason they lost. But he didn’t play last playoffs and they got swept. We all know if hed played and they got swept he’d be said to be the reason.

Neither he nor Rudy actually make their teams worse but they are dealing with people so dug in they will be blamed for any failure no matter how not comes about. Doesn’t help they’ve both acted like douchebags at times in some highly publicized situations.

It’s gonna be hard to break the stigma around either but the answer to your question is still simple.


”Dunker” is damn near an nba position at this point and a lot of bigs are expected to play it.

Guards? Less accepted.

Lots of centers aren’t expected to do much but roll hard and dunk.

Nobody asks when Capela is gonna develop a 3 pointer.

Non shooting bigs have always been ok. A lot of them have been stars.

Less so for guards.

[SouBeachTalents]

The paint clogging, defensive, monster big, who can’t be relied on to do much but dunk is pretty common, and in many cases respected. It’s an established and accepted approach to the position. There are many many examples. The best of them like Ben Wallace and Mutombo are hall of fame worthy. They were nothing Rudy isn’t on offense. Mutombo began his career in an era they forced bigs the ball so he scored more out the gate but his general level? He’s not gonna do much Gobert doesn’t. Shutting down the paint has always been much of a centers job people accept and respect specialists at it.

Timelord isn’t gonna do much with the ball and does anyone have a problem with him? If so I never heard it.

Rudy just suffers in public from the expectation that comes with his contract and here…from his main fan.

Ben? Point guards…guards in general…. traditionally have been expected to develop scoring skills. But they also have room to do other things. But there are less examples of stars with that play style. Young Kidd is the closest…or maybe Rondo. Among stars. The guys who just play hard d and don’t look to score tend to be role players who don’t have the body type to really dominate.

Ben is in a superstar body with a backup role players hesitancy to impose his will. He seems to be leaving more in the table than most who choose to play so scared.

But this is where he and Rudy share an issue. Being good enough at what they do to get massive pay but not to play the way people associate that pay with.

You get right down to it they annoy people more than they actually hurt teams.

So much of the heat everyone gets is fans validating opinions formed before the player did whatever it is they’re hating on. Let Ben play this years playoffs and they lose. It will be said you can’t win with a point who is shook and he’s the reason they lost. But he didn’t play last playoffs and they got swept. We all know if hed played and they got swept he’d be said to be the reason.

Neither he nor Rudy actually make their teams worse but they are dealing with people so dug in they will be blamed for any failure no matter how not comes about. Doesn’t help they’ve both acted like douchebags at times in some highly publicized situations.

It’s gonna be hard to break the stigma around either but the answer to your question is still simple.


”Dunker” is damn near an nba position at this point and a lot of bigs are expected to play it.

Guards? Less accepted.

Lots of centers aren’t expected to do much but roll hard and dunk.

Nobody asks when Capela is gonna develop a 3 pointer.

Non shooting bigs have always been ok. A lot of them have been stars.

Less so for guards.

Nailed it. I'm sure the fact that Ben was a number one pick while Rudy went late in the first also plays some factor in the perception as well. But in Ben's case, it doesn't even matter what he does on the court or how he conducts himself off of it, a perimeter player in this era who literally can't shoot a 3 will always be perceived negatively by fans.

[Druckenmiller]

Nailed it. I'm sure the fact that Ben was a number one pick while Rudy went late in the first also plays some factor in the perception as well. But in Ben's case, it doesn't even matter what he does on the court or how he conducts himself off of it, a perimeter player in this era who literally can't shoot a 3 will always be perceived negatively by fans.

We’ve seen lots of centers that didn’t shoot or score and were still relatively successful players. People can wrap their head around that.

We’ve never seen a guard that was literally scared to shoot the ball.

Beyond that, Rudy improved significantly from where he started in the NBA as a late first round pick, while Simmons was the No. 1 overall pick and hasn’t improved at all. If anything, he’s gotten significantly worse with time.

[tontoz]

Rudy's career ortg is 128. I would say most teams would be happy with that from a center even with low volume scoring.

[Kblaze8855]

Rudy's career ortg is 128. I would say most teams would be happy with that from a center even with low volume scoring.

Highest of all time. Deandre Jordan is 5th all time. Steven Adams 14th. Jonas 17th. Chandler 19th. Gobert, Tristian Thompson, and Clint Capela are 1-2-3 all time in the playoffs. Not among bigs. Period. The top 3 offensive ratings in playoff history are 3 modern bigs who do little but dunk. None of the 3 can shoot free throws either.

Turns out someone handing you the ball next to the rim to turn and dunk it with little risk of missing or turning it over produces great offensive ratings.

Considering that I’m impressed Jokic is so high on the list. He actually does things.

[AlternativeAcc.]

Highest of all time. Deandre Jordan is 5th all time. Steven Adams 14th. Jonas 17th. Chandler 19th. Gobert, Tristian Thompson, and Clint Capela are 1-2-3 all time in the playoffs. Not among bigs. Period. The top 3 offensive ratings in playoff history are 3 modern bigs who do little but dunk. None of the 3 can shoot free throws either.

Turns out someone handing you the ball next to the rim to turn and dunk it with little risk of missing or turning it over produces great offensive ratings.

Considering that I’m impressed Jokic is so high on the list. He actually does things.

Fukking roasted.

Stat geek getting murdered.

Whats funny is Toody always leads the league in turnovers per touch and per time of possession despite only touching the ball for wide open dunks.

[Kblaze8855]

I wasn’t talking so much about his opinion I’m just saying that’s one of those stats that has a few ways to get to the top of. Clearly players who aren’t very good on offense can get there by greatly limiting what they try to do. You can dunk your way there without being particularly talented. The guys like Jokic or Magic Johnson who get up there while having the ball and doing a lot of different things are the impressive ones to me. The Goberts and Deandre Jordans? Eh.

[AlternativeAcc.]

I wasn’t talking so much about his opinion I’m just saying that’s one of those stats that has a few ways to get to the top of. Clearly players who aren’t very good on offense can get there by greatly limiting what they try to do. You can dunk your way there without being particularly talented. The guys like Jokic or Magic Johnson who get up there while having the ball and doing a lot of different things are the impressive ones to me. The Goberts and Deandre Jordans? Eh.

You exposed his one dimensional thinking though. He tries to use advanced stats to prove points but he doesn't understand them.

Anybody trying to argue that Toody is a good offensive player literally knows nothing about the NBA. They either have never watched him play or base their opinions on stats they don't understand. In his case its probably both

[tontoz]

Fukking roasted.

Stat geek getting murdered.

Whats funny is Toody always leads the league in turnovers per touch and per time of possession despite only touching the ball for wide open dunks.

Huh? Are you reading impaired? I simply said most teams would be happy with that from a center on offense. Do you think the coaches of the players he listed were disappointed with their production?



Obviously when volume goes up efficiency nwill go down. Ortg is a measure of efficiency. It isn't meant to measure a players entire offensive contribution.

[AlternativeAcc.]

Huh? Are you reading impaired? I simply said most teams would be happy with that from a center on offense. Do you think the coaches of the players he listed were disappointed?

He gets paid over 40 million a year you dumb mother fukker.

He produces like a role player and gets paid like a max superstar. Nobody is happy with that.

[Kblaze8855]

I don’t know what he was scoring when they signed him to that contract but whatever it was, I doubt they expected him to develop into a scorer.

30-40 million is just what good players cost these days. If a really good player makes under 30 million it’s because he signed the deal before he broke out.

[tontoz]

He gets paid over 40 million a year you dumb mother fukker.

He produces like a role player and gets paid like a max superstar. Nobody is happy with that.

What does his contract have to do with it? That is a completely separate argument.

I think Beal is a good player. I was on record as saying I would rather let him walk for nothing rather than paying him $50 million per year.

Contracts are a different discussion.

[fourkicks44]

Simmons always claimed he was a PG in the present day NBA. He was adamant of it. He never even TRIED to address the weaknesses he had that stopped him from becoming a PG his team needed or what was required in today's game.

When questioned about it, his coach said that he wasn't sure he played the right position. In response, Simmons quit on his team and voluntarily sat out a year of his basketball prime.

Gobert never pretended he was a PG in today's game. He never pretended he was something he shouldn't have been.

That is the main difference.