Rudy Gobert wittily responds to Charles Barkley after naming his newborn son "Romeo" instead of NBA legend's namesake
Rudy Gobert missed Game 2 of the Western Conference semifinals on Monday to attend the birth of his child. It has been a busy couple of days for Gobert, as he won his fourth Defensive Player of the Year on Tuesday. Gobert went on “Inside the NBA” to accept the award. During the show, Charles Barkley had a baby-related question.
Barkley wanted to know if Gobert almost chose to name his newborn son after the legendary NBA player. Gobert and his partner instead went with Romeo and had a witty response to Barkley’s question.
“I tried to pick (a name) of people that I like. But I do like you. Charles is actually a French name too. You were on the list but we wanted a name with ‘R’ so unfortunately you didn’t make the cut. But I still love you Charles,” Gobert said.
Barkley had a good laugh about the response. He wished Gobert congratulations on the new addition to his family:
Rudy Gobert wins fourth career DPOY
Rudy Gobert picked up his fourth Defensive Player of the Year on Tuesday. The French center also won the award in 2018, 2019 and 2021. He beat out Bam Adebayo of the Miami Heat and rookie sensation Victor Wembanyama of the San Antonio Spurs. He ties Ben Wallace and Dikembe Mutombo for most DPOY awards in an NBA career.
Gobert was sixth in the league in blocks this season with 2.1 blocks per game. Wembanyama was the league leader with 3.6 per game.
Gobert was also a rebounding machine once again this season. He was second in the league with 12.9 rebounds per game. Only Domantas Sabonis had more with 13.7 rpg.
Gobert also added 14.0 points per game this season. His numbers were short of his career highs of 15.9 ppg, 14.7 rpg, and 2.6 bpg.
More importantly, Rudy Gobert was the centerpiece of the top-rated defense in the NBA. The T’Wolves led the league nearly all season in defensive rating, and Gobert was a major reason for that.
However, the Wolves had one of their best defensive performances of the season without Rudy Gobert in Game 2 of their series against the Denver Nuggets. Minnesota suffocated the defending champions and held them to 80 points. Denver shot just 9-of-30 from three-point range and 34.9 percent from the field.
Jamal Murray was constricted all game and finished with eight points. Even Nikola Jokic was held to 16 points.
It will be interesting to see if the Wolves can bring the same defensive intensity and performance to Game 3 with Gobert back in the lineup. Game 3 will be in Minnesota on Friday, four days after Game 2, in a strange scheduling move by the NBA.