PROFESSIONAL CAREER

No matter what you call him—The Stifle Tower, Gobzilla, The French Rejection—one thing is certain: Rudy Gobert is one of the most impactful players in the NBA. Gobert was selected with the No. 27 overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft by the Denver Nuggets—and then immediately traded to the Utah Jazz. Gobert was named to the All-NBA Second Team in 2017 and the All-NBA Third Team in 2019, and he won the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year award in both 2018 and 2019, becoming the first Jazz player to win the award since Mark Eaton in 1989. In 2020, Gobert was named an NBA All-Star. The 7-foot-1 center helped France to a third-place finish in the European Championships in 2015, and he also represented his home country in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

BEFORE NBA

Gobert was born on June 26, 1992 in Saint-Quentin, France, and he started his professional career in 2010 on the Cholet Basket junior team. In 2010, he participated in the FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship with the French under-18 national team, where he finished as the team's best scorer and rebounder. Gobert is a huge fan of the Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) soccer team.