The Minnesota Timberwolves may have only played about 12% of their schedule so far, but it sure feels like Rudy Gobert has already logged a season's worth of up-and-down play.

Gobert has long been one of the most polarizing NBA players in online discourse. On the one hand, it's confounding: he's a four-time Defensive Player of the Year and nine-time member of the NBA's All-Defensive Team. On the other hand, well ... there is the reality of what we've seen for much of the first two-plus weeks of the season from Gobert on the offensive end of the floor.

As always the case with early-November analysis, small sample size warnings apply to the entire discussion. Again, we're talking about a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer and a player who last season made the All-Defensive First Team and finished third in DPOY voting -- in other words, he isn't hitting a steep decline phase yet.

There's no doubt it's been a rocky start this season on the offensive end, but let's take a closer look at Gobert's actual impact on both ends of the floor.

Gobert's defensive impact remains unmatched

Heading into play on Sunday, the Wolves allow 17.5 fewer points per 100 possessions with Gobert on the floor, a 95th-percentile impact. Minnesota is also the league's No. 2 defense, and two of the top five defensive lineups across the entire league are Wolves units that include Gobert.

Gobert's 26.9% defensive rebounding rate is his best mark in three years, which is even more important given the relative lack of size and depth in the Wolves' frontcourt and the speed at which head coach Chris Finch would like to play this year (it's a lot easier to run in transition off of missed baskets, and you can't run until you secure the rebound).

Just this past April, we watched Gobert shut down Nikola Jokic in the first round of the playoffs to the tune of 44.6% shooting and nearly four turnovers per game across the six contests. Earlier this week against the previously West-leading Houston Rockets, Gobert did something similar to Alperen Sengun.

Alperen Sengun didn't make a single field goal tonight while Rudy Gobert was on the court.

Sengun tonight with Gobert ON (28 mins):

6 points
8 assists
0 of 9 FG
6 of 8 FT

Sengun with Gobert OFF (10 mins):

11 points
2 assists
5 of 6 FG
1-1 FT

— Charlie Walton (@CharlieWaltonMN) November 5, 2026

Timberwolves OnSI's own Charlie Walton also added that Sengun shot 0-for-8 with Gobert as his primary defender and scored only four points, and the entire Rockets team was just 2-for-17 when Gobert was guarding them.

Only once in the last 11 seasons has Rudy Gobert anchored a defense that did not land in the NBA's top 10. Defenses that feature Gobert are, at worst, very good. At their best, they're genuinely elite, and that's what we have seen so far this season.

Gobert's offensive contributions have been ... a mixed bag

Gobert has always struggled to catch passes with consistency, especially when below his shoulders or, God forbid, below his waist. Those struggles have seemingly manifested even more frequently this season and are surely magnified by playing with a wizard-like point guard in LaMelo Ball.

Gobert has not caught the ball cleanly often enough, and it's been a major factor in Ball's incredibly high turnover rate of 20.7% entering play on Sunday, which would easily be a career-worst if it persisted throughout the season.

And then there's the shooting. Gobert led the league in field goal percentage last season for the fourth time in his career, making 68.2% of his field goal attempts.

The free-throw shooting, however, was the worst since his rookie year: Gobert shot 64.3% from the line from 2015 to 2025, a palatable mark for a man of Gobert's size who is far from the focal point of the offense. In 2025-26, however, that mark plummeted to 52.6%. And this year? Just 20-for-49 thus far, a horrendous 40.8%.

Weirdly, heading into play on Friday, Gobert had shot the same number of free-throw attempts as field goals across the eight games he had played. That shifted a bit following the game against the Pelicans, but the moral of the story is that teams aren't shy about playing Hack-A-Rudy, and it's hard to blame them.

Clearly, Gobert has to start converting more around the rim, and when teams foul him, he has to make them pay. Of course, it all starts with actually catching the ball to begin with.

Still, Gobert remains one of the game's best screeners, currently sitting fourth in screen assists and accustomed to being in the top three perennially in that category. The chemistry he and Ball are creating in the pick-and-roll game is impressive, as Gobert routinely gives Ball plenty of space to work with and is comfortable passing out of the short roll when he gets the ball near the free-throw line.

Perhaps the most important impact Gobert has had on the offensive end of the floor so far this season is his offensive rebounding. His offensive rebound rate sits at 14.3%, a mark that would be a career-best if it sustained. Gobert's ability to back-tap the ball or punch it to a waiting teammate is huge and, along with his backup and fellow Frenchman Joan Beringer, is one of the primary reasons that the Wolves currently carry the league's best offensive rebound rate.

Surely, Gobert's defensive contributions will continue, if not improve, as the season wears on. The reality that his free-throw shooting has been getting worse for over a year is certainly concerning, but there's no reason to think any other piece of Gobert's game has become actively worse on that end of the floor.

Provided that the chemistry between Ball and Gobert continues to blossom, it's too early to be overly concerned about Gobert's hands -- or at least not any more than usual. It's always been an issue, so it makes sense that building a rapport with Ball could take some time.

If Gobert's shooting accuracy evens out sooner rather than later, it would have a significant impact. And if the Gobert-Ball pairing grows on more of a linear path then the sky really is the limit for the Wolves' offense.