Revisiting the Rudy Gobert trade: the price paid, the success earned and a final verdict

The early days of the Rudy Gobert trade werent pretty for anyone in Minnesota.

The initial reaction to the blockbuster trade on July 6, 2022 was largely negative, both for the player the Timberwolves were acquiring and the price they paid to get him.

The Timberwolves sent a total of 10 assets, including players and picks, to the Utah Jazz for Gobert.

It was Tim Connellys first big move as Timberwolves president of basketball operations, and he didnt step lightly into it.

He was sending a gargantuan package to Utah for a polarizing player, one who had established himself as a generational defender, but also one who had never made it to a conference finals.

Advertisement Connelly had just taken over the front office in Minnesota two months ago, and now he was going for this? But he saw a team that had just gotten dominated in the paint by the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round of the playoffs and he saw a young star in Anthony Edwards that needed to be shown that the Timberwolves could sustain winning around him.

There was nothing easy about the launch of the Gobert era in Minnesota.

The union with Karl-Anthony Towns in an unconventional frontcourt took time to develop.

The rest of the Wolves needed time to learn how to play defense around Goberts unique style.

Minnesota went a disappointing 42-40 in the regular season four fewer victories than it had the previous season and lost to Denver 4-1 in the first round of the playoffs.

At that point, there was full on panic in the Timberwolves fan base.

Concern about Goberts individual play.

Concern about the fit with the Wolves.

Concern about Edwards long-term future if this whole thing flamed out.

But familiarity quickly turned things around.

Gobert won NBA Defensive Player of the Year in 2023-24 and the Wolves have made back-to-back trips to the Western Conference finals for the first time in franchise history.

Gobert is about to enter his fourth season in Minnesota.

The sample size has grown.

That makes now a good time to revisit the trade one more time to see how it has worked out for the Wolves in their pursuit of sustained competitiveness, an elusive status for most of their first 30 years in the league.

The deal Minnesota received: Utah received: The criticism: The deal was widely panned from league analysts and insiders.

It centered on a few themes: A lot of it centered on the last two points.

Was this a wise move when the new face of the franchise was so young? Why not let him grow, and conserve those assets until he was more mature and ready to win, then package those picks to go get a wing man who could put the Wolves over the hump? It would be one thing if they used all of that capital on, say, Kevin Durant, an alpha scorer with a championship pedigree.

But was Gobert good enough to warrant a push like this? Advertisement The motivation: Amid the torrent of criticism, the Wolves and Connelly were confident that Gobert was the piece they needed for where they were at the time.

The last point may be the most important one.

Did trading for Gobert immediately make the Timberwolves title contenders? That is usually the bar for a deal of this magnitude.

The answer was no.

But the Wolves knew that Goberts teams were always competitive, having made the playoffs in each of the previous six seasons.

Long before Connelly arrived, the Wolves struggled in two separate efforts to build winning programs around young stars.

Kevin Love missed the playoffs in all six of his seasons in Minnesota before he was traded to Cleveland.

Towns won more than 36 games one time in his first six seasons, giving him precious little experience playing games that had any stakes.

They did not want that to happen with Edwards, who they believed had the chance to develop into one of the very best players in the game.

To help that development, he needed to play meaningful games, needed to feel the difference between the regular season and the playoffs.

He also needed to see that the Timberwolves organization was capable of surrounding him with the talent needed to win at a high level.

It was their way of doing whatever they could to prevent his eye from wandering to glitzier franchises in bigger markets.

What the Wolves gave up In addition to the draft picks, the Wolves gave up five players in the deal.

Four of them were considered key to their present or future.

Beverley was a major voice on a team that made it to the playoffs.

Vanderbilt was a Rodman-like defensive presence on a great contract.

Kessler was their first-round draft pick in 2022 who would have slotted into a significant role in the frontcourt had he stayed.

Beasley was a valuable 3-point shooter.

Advertisement Looking back, Beverley played for four teams over the next two seasons, never appearing in more than 45 games and is now out of the league.

Vanderbilt flashed a little bit with the Los Angeles Lakers, but the Wolves were always concerned about his ability to stay healthy and he has 65 games total over the last two seasons.

Beasley was terrific for the Detroit Pistons last season, but he bounced around with the Jazz, Lakers and Milwaukee Bucks before that and continues to have issues off the court.

In Year 1, with Gobert slow out of the gates and Kessler off to a fast start, that was looking like a big mistake.

Kesslers statistical profile was similar to Goberts for about one-tenth the salary.

But over the last two seasons, Gobert has reasserted himself as a driver of winning.

Kessler has played well, including averaging 12.2 rebounds per game last season, but Gobert has been a considerably better player, as should be expected given the difference in experience.

The Wolves also, eventually, were forced to part with Towns to alleviate the salary crunch created by having three max contracts on their roster, including Edwards and Gobert.

They traded KAT to New York last season for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo, who are making less money combined than Towns is, to give them some versatility on the floor and flexibility on their books.

As for the picks, the first one they gave up ended up being No.

16 in 2023.

The Jazz chose Keyonte George, a point guard who has shown some promise but has plenty of question marks.

Others who would have been available to the Wolves had they kept that pick include Jaime Jaquez Jr., Brandin Podziemski and Cam Whitmore.

In 2025, the Jazz used their second first-rounder from Minnesota, which was No.

21, to move up to No.

18 and take Florida guard Walter Clayton Jr.

The Wolves still owe the Jazz a pick swap in 2026, which is highly unlikely to be exercised because the Jazz appear to still be years from contention, an unprotected first-rounder in 2027 and a protected first-rounder in 2029.

The hope internally is that, with a team with a mixture of young players and veterans, there should not be a big drop-off in 2027 that would jeopardize a juicy high draft choice going to Utah.

As for 2029, like Kevin Garnett once said, anything is possible.

The missing piece There is plenty of worthy discussion to be had on the price the Wolves paid for a player of Goberts stature.

In my estimation, one criticism of the deal that was misinformed centered on the Wolves sacrificing their future, and their ability to add young talent around Edwards, by making the trade for a veteran center.

Advertisement At the time of the trade, Edwards was about to turn 21, Jaden McDaniels was turning 22 and Naz Reid 23.

Most could see that Edwards had the makings of a star, but many outside the organization didnt understand that McDaniels was on the path to emerging as one of the best perimeter defenders in the league and a player with a knack for coming up big offensively in the playoffs who would one day sign a five-year, $131 million contract extension.

They also did not know that Reid would go on to win the Sixth Man of the Year award in 2024 and show enough talent to earn a five-year, $125 million contract this summer .

There was also concern about the Wolves losing all of those draft picks.

But Connelly has gotten aggressive and creative to try to replenish his assets.

He hit on their first-rounder in 2024, Terrence Shannon Jr., way down at No.

27, and also made a deal that night to swap his first-rounder in 2031 with San Antonio for the No.

8 pick, which he used on Rob Dillingham.

The jury is still out on Dillingham, but getting two first-round picks essentially makes up for losing one of the Gobert selections.

He also got the New York Knicks to include the Pistons lottery protected 2025 first-rounder in the Towns trade.

With a little bit of luck, the Pistons made a surprising run to the playoffs, giving the Wolves the No.

17 pick.

Connelly chose French big man Joan Beringer, who is earning rave reviews behind the scenes for what he has shown this summer.

So now the Wolves cupboard of young players looks like this: Thats nine players who are 26 or younger.

Among that list, only Zikarsky and Miller have yet to show that they can play in the NBA.

Yes, the Wolves had Towns in his prime, Gobert and, eventually, Mike Conley as veterans nearing the end or at the end of theirs.

But with so much talk about the difficulties the Golden State Warriors had with pulling off a two-timeline approach to roster management, the Wolves have come much closer to pulling it off, albeit without the title to show for it yet.

The verdict Give Connelly truth serum and he would probably tell you that he shouldve held on to at least one of those first-rounders that he sent to Utah.

It was probably an overpay at the time.

But the results are hard to dispute.

Advertisement In the 18 years before Gobert arrived, the Wolves were 531-901 (.371) and made the playoffs twice, both ending in first-round exits.

In his three seasons in Minnesota, the Wolves are 147-99 (.597) with three straight playoff appearances and two Western Conference finals berths.

The Wolves had only been out of the first round of the playoffs once in franchise history before Gobert arrived.

There are many reasons for the teams success.

First and foremost, Edwards has become the alpha star that every contender needs.

Coach Chris Finch also deserves credit for the way he has led the team.

Towns, McDaniels, Conley, Randle, Reid, DiVincenzo, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, they all share in this run.

Goberts impact is undeniable as well.

He has been the driving force in the Timberwolves adopting a defense-first mentality that has been so key to their run.

He did not play well against Dallas or OKC in either conference finals appearance, but he had a couple of monster performances in closeout games against the Lakers and Warriors in the first two rounds last spring.

Most importantly, Gobert has served as the backbone for this Timberwolves run, which has given Edwards, McDaniels and Reid invaluable glimpses into the playoff pressure cooker.

They needed to feel that heat, to learn from it, fail in it and want to come back for more.

They also needed to see that you can do it in Minnesota, something that many believed was impossible not that long ago.

Yes, the Wolves paid a big price to get Gobert.

But the individual success of 2023-24 and the team success of the last two seasons have changed the culture in Minnesota.

This is a place players can come to win now.

This is a place players want to stay now.

This is a place that has real expectations.

Gobert has been a big part of that change, and so the trade was a resounding win for the Timberwolves.

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