After Shaquille O’Neal, Another NBA Legend Laughs at Rudy Gobert’s Defense

Rudy Gobert is a contender for another DPOY award. But Shaquille O’Neal ruthlessly suggests that Gobert was never good from the beginning. O’Neal is a long-time critic of the 3-time Defensive Player of the Year. Shaq’s stand and statement is now being endorsed by another NBA legend.

Gilbert Arenas on the latest episode of NIGHTCAP agreed with Shaquille O’Neal, “I never thought he [Ruby] was a great defensive player, either. What it is, there’s not a lot of centers that are making him play defense. He’s not doing it against Jokic because he has to engaged. But when he’s going against another guy, he’s 7’6, of course, if you lay it up, he’s going to block it.”

Arenas replied with short 3 words: “for sure facts”.

Gilbert further compared Gobert’s performance against different players. “Let’s look at these stats. He has only played Jokić (Nikola Jokić) one time this year. Jokić had 25-10. Of course, he played Wembanyama (Victor Wembanyama) four times ’cause he is a rookie. 29-9, 12-10, 17-13, 23-10 is what Wemby gave him. He played Embiid (Joel Embiid) one time. Embiid gave him 51-10. He’s played AD (Anthony Davis) two times, 31-8, 33-17. And then last game, he was a no-show.”

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Why Shaquille O’Neal is right about Ruby

Arenas continued, “The guys who can score are busting his a** which means he’s not a great on-ball defender. Meaning when his guy has the ball, and he’s in the scoring position, he can’t stop him. Right so there is a bunch of .. you are getting credits for things that has nothing to do with you personally. You are getting defensive stops, but you are not stopping the guy who scores on you. I can see why Shaq (Shaquille O’Neal) is saying this.”

Gilbert Arenas said he always understood this weakness about Gobert. But other people usually used to start questioning him about his own defensive play and that he had no right to criticize. “And I always understood it, people like you didn’t play great defense. I was great; I took charges; I was great on the ball, but my man wasn’t taking me on dribble and stuff like that.”

Gilbert did not approve of the stats that are used in consideration for the DPOY award: “So it’s weird on how they are rating these guys. Steals, Blocks, and defensive rebounding, but he can’t stop his individual man one-on-one. But he is leading in the category of the defense.”

Reiterating the same sentiment that Shaquille O’Neal has been harping on for years about Rudy Gobert.

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