Rudy Gobert earned the frustration aimed at him in Minnesota's 119-114 home loss to Golden State on Wednesday. He just didn't earn it from LaMelo Ball and Jonathan Kuminga, who spent the whole game building cases against themselves.
During a timeout, Ball and Kuminga got animated with Gobert on the bench while he sat there in silence. It never boiled over, but the body language was unmistakable.
Now the box scores. Gobert put up one point on 0-for-4 shooting with four rebounds in 20 minutes. That's ugly, and it's part of something worse: he's gone 0-for-13 over his last two games and has three games this season without a single made field goal. A veteran center producing nothing on offense hands the other team permission to shrink the floor, and Golden State happily went small because Gobert gave them no reason not to.
Rating
RatingThe frustration is real and it's deserved. The problem is who was handing it out.
LaMelo Ball shot 3-for-11 for eight points and coughed up six turnovers. He was the most animated man in that huddle, and he was also having one of his roughest nights of the young season. You don't get to turn it over six times and then appoint yourself sideline supervisor. That's deflection with volume, pointing at the guy next to you so the room looks anywhere but your own line.
RTGKuminga at least played well, leading Minnesota with 20 points against the team that traded him in February. He came in saying the matchup was "just another day, man," then spent the loss looking like it was anything but. Scoring 20 buys you more standing than eight points and six giveaways. It doesn't buy you the right to make a veteran the public villain on a night the whole roster stunk in a home loss.
The backdrop makes the infighting worse. This was Minnesota's first game since learning Anthony Edwards will be out up to two months after a knee procedure, as of late October. Lose your best player and the margin for this kind of squabbling disappears. Edwards himself reportedly got on Gobert for giving up on a play in Monday's overtime loss to Cleveland, asking "Why did you stop playing?" The center is already the designated lightning rod. And Gobert has history: back in 2023 he threw a punch at teammate Kyle Anderson on the bench. A 3-0 start has turned into two straight losses, and the locker room clearly knows it.
Set the messengers aside. Gobert's offense is the problem Minnesota has to solve. A center who can't score at all, across multiple games, in a league built on spacing, is a hole opponents will keep hammering. The one guy who walks out of Wednesday looking decent is Joan Beringer, the teammate seen trying to settle Gobert down during the dustup.
Gobert owns the performance, and right now it's a failing grade. Ball owns the spectacle, and he picked the worst possible night to start it. Before he worries about anyone else's box score, he should look at his own.
