How Rudy Gobert has helped the Jazz to a record-breaking 3-point start without taking a shot

SALT LAKE CITY — Rudy Gobert has always been one of the more interesting player studies in the league. Not because of what is easily seen — his blocked shots, the dunks, the overall defensive impact — but what often goes unnoticed.

Before Shaquille O'Neal asked Donovan Mitchell an awkward postgame question, he was busy trying to fabricate a beef with Gobert. O'Neal has been oddly vocal about Gobert's apparent unworthiness of his five-year extension worth north of $200 million.

"I'm not gonna hate, but this should be an inspiration to all the little kids out there — you average 11 points in the NBA, you can get $200 million," O'Neal said earlier this month.

That was a position he doubled down on Thursday night, leading to his fellow commentators on "Inside the NBA" calling him "Petty White" and "Richard Petty."

Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley came to the defense of Gobert, with Barkley eventually telling O'Neal that "Rudy Gobert would dominate you," if only to get a reaction from the Hall-of-Fame center. While arguing Gobert's case, the points revolved, unsurprisingly, around how good he was on the defensive end. But that misses half of what Gobert does for a team.

That other half is exactly what makes Gobert so interesting. Shaq isn't lying when he talks about Gobert's point total. Gobert's 12.2 points per game average is low for a near-max player. But that's points scored, not points created. How do you properly value a player that doesn't light up the stat sheet but Utah's now-record-breaking offense revolves around?

Utah has hit 248 3-pointers so far this season — the most by any team through the first 15 games. Gobert didn't make one of those, but he created a lot of them.

On Thursday, Mitchell hit his 600th three, reaching the mark in fewer games (240) than any other player before him. The historic shot was a wide-open look after Gobert had freed Mitchell by screening Lonzo Ball. Screen assists have become sort of a meme in the NBA world with how strong the Jazz have championed them.

No matter how you feel about the stat, the campaign to get the stat more noticed was a campaign to recognize Gobert's immense impact on the offensive end. Gobert often leads the league in screen assists and points created from screens (he's currently second this season).

"That's huge for us," Mitchell said of the screens. "That creates that advantage, and that's really one thing that I think goes under-appreciated. We know. We know. We tell him every day we appreciate it because it gets us open and gets us looks without necessarily getting him points. It's really unselfish of him to kind of continue to do that and continue to know that that's how he impacts the game."

To be fair to Shaq, Mike Conley also admitted to not quite realizing how integral Gobert was to Jazz before he arrived in Utah. Like everyone else, Conley knew he was a great defensive player and his presence at the rim forced adjustments, but that's kind of where he thought it ended.

"From outside in you knew he was a great defensive player, that's kind of where I left it at, but after getting to know him and what he does for our team, he makes our team go, honestly," Conley said. "He's the most important player on our team with his ability to get guys open on screens and sacrifice runs down the court."

Gobert's dives to the rim (Jazz coach Quin Snyder calls them "vertical spacing") and his screens have long been central to Utah's offensive attack, but Gobert has been asked to do something else this season: run and run and run.

With the Jazz's emphasis on firing up threes early and often, Gobert has been coached to run down the middle of the floor to draw defenses to him and free up shooters. Those are the "sacrifice runs" Conley mentioned.

"The one right now that I would say is the most impactful thing for us —I think we've seen him roll to the basket, we've seen him put pressure on the rim, we've seen him offensive rebound — is his running," Snyder said. "Him running, whether it's on a make or a miss, and putting pressure on the rim in those situations, early in the clock just spreads the floor. When he's running to the rim, it's similar to him rolling in pick and roll — you have to honor that."

And when teams honor that, the Jazz are often able to kick it out for a three. On such plays, Gobert won't touch the ball or register a stat (not even a screen assist), but Utah will get an open shot. And with how it's been playing out this season, that likely means 3 points.

"Very unselfish guy; you've got to be super unselfish to do that and sometimes not touch the ball," Conley said. "He's been an incredible teammate."

Snyder said it's been an emphasis to recognize those runs — to highlight that it was Gobert that created the shot. But even Snyder knows that it's "not always the easiest thing to do to keep running possession after possession … and not be the one that gets the points on the box score."

That, though, is par for the course for Gobert. It's part of the mystery of his game — an elite player that doesn't always show up like one on the stat sheet. His strengths are usually overlooked because it takes going back and slowing down the film to see how plays unfold and how his movements manipulate defenses. If you take the time to do that, Gobert's value suddenly skyrockets. But even then, you probably won't get the whole picture.

"I know he has a lot of critics out there that try to devalue him with their words, but I don't think anyone will ever understand how valuable he is to this team unless you're in this locker room," Georges Niang said.

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