Chris Finch said it best after the Wolves’ 119-116 win over the Denver Nuggets in November 2024: Rudy Gobert gives Minnesota something you can’t fake.
“Rudy is one of the most mentally tough players I’ve ever coached… his teammates love him for that, he won’t back down."
That line still fits a year and nine months later, and it goes a long way toward explaining why the Wolves chose to keep Gobert in place for 2026-27. With Anthony Edwards and LaMelo Ball leading the next phase, Minnesota’s decision to hold onto Gobert is one of the clearest non-moves of the offseason.
That Denver game showed exactly why. The box score only tells part of the story.
Nikola Jokic spent most of the night with Gobert on him and still posted 26 points, 13 assists and 9 rebounds, finishing at plus-six. But when Gobert was off the floor for those eight minutes, the Wolves outscored the Nuggets by nine.
The ending was where Gobert made the biggest imprint. He grabbed a crucial rebound, knocked down two free throws to put Minnesota up three with seconds left, then got the stop on Jokic at the other end to finish the job. Finch’s praise came right after, and it stuck.
That moment also mattered because of where Minnesota was at the time. The Karl Anthony Towns trade was still fresh in everyone’s mind, and a loss that night could have pushed the 2024-25 season in a very different direction. Instead, Gobert closed it out, the Wolves won three of their next four, and the noise around the Towns deal at least quieted for a bit.
Now the same steady presence matters again. This will be Gobert’s third run with the Wolves through a major offensive reset, and the third time he’s been asked to anchor the defense while new pieces settle in.
He knows the routine by now. He’s been through the initial trade to Minnesota, the Towns trade, and now the Ball trade, and none of it is new territory for him.
His role goes beyond rim protection. Minnesota will lean on him to set the tone in the locker room and establish the habits that keep a team grounded through change. Finch laid that out again in May 2025 after the Wolves eliminated the Lakers 4-1.
"He drives winning. You can not like who he is, how he does it, what he looks like… He doesn't listen to the outside noise, we don't listen to the outside noise. No one is happier for Rudy than his teammates."
For a 34-year-old big man, there’s obvious risk in banking on the same player to hold everything together again. But Minnesota’s choice is built on more than age or projection. It’s built on what Gobert has already shown: he brings toughness, stability and a nightly impact that changes games.
And for the Wolves, that’s exactly why keeping him made sense.
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Now in Chicago, Dillingham has gotten more run and shown better numbers, but the larger question still hangs over him: can he grow into a meaningful rotation guard, not just a spark in short bursts? For Minnesota fans who watched the early promise get bogged down, this upcoming season feels like the kind that could finally clarify whether his game can catch up to his pedigree, especially with his shooting and playmaking still very much under the microscope. [Read more 🡒]