clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Rudy Gobert is swatting his way up the Utah Jazz franchise record book

Like a hot girl on Instagram - if you don’t come correct you’ll get blocked

By AllThatAmar
NBA: Houston Rockets at Utah Jazz Chris Nicoll-USA TODAY Sports

Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert has been a big deal from Day 1 of the 2013 NBA Draft Combine, through his draft day trade (the Denver Nuggets did get a lot out of Erick Green and that cash Dennis Lindsey sent over), and will be all the way till he retires. He is 7 foot a billion with an infinite length. Some questioned his mobility. Others worried if his offensive game would every catch up to his obvious talents on the defensive end. Utah Jazz fans aren’t worried about anything with Rudy right now. The ones who ARE are the players ahead of him in the franchise record books.

Conventionally, using just regular season stats and not a combined ranking with the NBA Playoffs, Gobert has moved into 10th place all-time in New Orleans / Utah Jazz history for blocks.

  1. Mark Eaton - 3,064
  2. Andrei Kirilenko - 1,380
  3. Greg Ostertag - 1,253
  4. Karl Malone - 1,125
  5. Thurl Bailey - 879
  6. Derrick Favors - 555
  7. Paul Millsap - 520
  8. Ben Poquette - 517
  9. Rich Kelley - 498
  10. Rudy Gobert - 413

Gobert displaced Mehmet Okur, but he doesn’t look like he’s stopping there. The Frenchman in on pace to block close to (or over) 200 shots this season. His previous career high was 189 back in 2014-2015. So far this season (19 games, or less than a quarter of the season) he has 48. His per game average is a career high 2.5 BPG. And in 11 of his 19 games this year we saw him send back 3 or more shots.

He’s been nothing short of a monster defensively this year.

But I wanted to go even deeper historically, so here are all the players in franchise history, playoffs and regular season combined, who have had games of 3+ blocks:

  1. Mark Eaton - 525
  2. Andrei Kirilenko - 246
  3. Greg Ostertag - 223
  4. Thurl Bailey - 108
  5. Karl Malone - 92
  6. Derrick Favors - 82
  7. Rudy Gobert - 73
  8. Paul Millsap - 56
  9. Al Jefferson - 42
  10. Mehmet Okur / Antoine Carr - 26
  11. Olden Polynice - 17
  12. Felton Spencer - 16
  13. David Benoit / Donyell Marshall / Carey Scurry - 15
  14. Gordon Hayward - 11
  15. Enes Kanter / John Stockton / Melvin Turpin / Jeff Withey - 6
  16. Jeremy Evans / Jeff Wilkins - 5
  17. Carlos Boozer / Kyrylo Fesenko / Adam Keefe - 4
  18. Trevor Booker / Darrell Griffith / C.J. Miles / Bryon Russell / Deron Williams - 3
  19. Kent Benson / Curtis Borchardt / Tom Chambers / Greg Foster / Rich Kelley / Kyle Korver / Mikki Moore - 2
  20. J.J. Anderson / Ronnie Brewer / Mike Brown / DeMarre Carroll / Jarron Collins / Tyrone Corbin / James Donaldson / Blue Edwards / Dante Exum / Randy Foye / Rickey Green / Devin Harris / Steve Hayes / Rodney Hood / Kris Humphries / Marc Iavaroni / Kosta Koufos / Quincy Lewis / Danny Manning / Tony Massenburg / Wesley Matthews / Chris Morris / Sasha Pavlovic / Kirk Snyder / DeShawn Stevenson / Marvin Williams - 1

So yeah, Quincy Lewis had a three block game. John Stockton had six. Rudy is on pace to be TOP 5 all-time in this by seasons’ end, even if the team doesn’t make the playoffs this year.

It’s incredible. It’s devastating. It’s dominating. It’s Rudy Gobert.

More From SLC Dunk