Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert has been ruled out of Saturday’s game against Houston after entering the NBA’s health and safety protocols, Minnesota announced (via Twitter).
According to Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic (Twitter link), Gobert was listed as questionable (illness) for Friday’s loss to Milwaukee, but wound up playing 30 minutes in the game and is now in the protocols, which isn’t a great situation for anyone involved. Gobert was famously the first known NBA player to test positive for COVID-19 in March 2020.
The league revised its COVID-related protocols over the summer and now requires testing for vaccinated players only when they show symptoms of the virus. Unvaccinated players still must be tested once per week. Players are subject to isolation measures after a positive test.
As Chris Hine of The Star Tribune tweets, there is no longer a mandatory quarantine timeline if Gobert tested positive, but he would need to pass the NBA’s testing requirements to be cleared from the protocols. If he doesn’t pass the tests, he can still return to action after 10 days.
The Wolves have had a rocky start to the 2022/23 season after their blockbuster trade to acquire Gobert from Utah in July, currently sitting with a 4-5 record. The three-time Defensive Player of the Year has been his normal productive self individually — he’s averaging 12.6 points, a league-best 13.9 rebounds and 1.6 blocks in nine games (32.2 minutes) — but the starting lineup has struggled offensively.
It was expected that there would be an acclimation period after the Wolves traded two starters in the Gobert deal, and that’s proven to be accurate. Losing Gobert temporarily certainly won’t help, but it’s worth noting that Minnesota started last season slowly and wound up making the playoffs after a second-half surge.
What year is it?
forgot to hide all the microphones
This guy was patient zero for the NBA lol
75% chance that Oakland City legend Anthony Edwards will be an Atlanta Hawk before his rookie contract is up. 0% chance he resigns in Minnesota
Name the last player that didn’t accept his max rookie extension…I’ll wait.
You’ll have to forgive Sankara. Dude is only tangentially aware of what the NBA even is but loves to comment on every article regardless.
Name the last kid from France to go #1 in the draft
What’s he going to do? Turn down his rookie extension? Are the T-Wolves not going to match any offer if he does so? Are the Hawks going to trade Collins, Young or Murray to clear cap space so they can make an offer just to have the opportunity for the T-Wolves to match?
I hope Ant leaves the wolves so badly, clogging his lane with Rudy was idiotic, I wanna watch a great player I don’t wanna watch a great player dodge his teammate to do 15 finger rolls a game
Rudy is the problem. His offense game is 2 feet from the basket so he clogs the lane up this has hurt Towns game of attacking the basket. Now T-wolves fan know why Utah never advanced in the playoffs. Golbert is just a rebounder and shot blocker.
A blind man could see the terrible Rudy/covid jokes coming from a mile away & surprise, surprise here they are smh
Unlike a lot of other people Gobert admitted he screwed up and apologized.
This will always give me flashbacks. The day the defense player of the year literally shut down the entire NBA almost overnight.
Wow this might affect the Bucks’ chance at 82-0 smh
Watch the Timberwolves go on a big time winning streak without him. Man’s shot that 3 and now this. Connelly is one of the worst gms in the league. He’s not even responsible for drafting Jokic either, he was persuaded to pick Jokic, he already selected Nurkic. Wolves management is in shambles.
Forever tied to COVID in my mind
Medical research has shown that, on average, each time someone gets Covid the symptoms worsen. Still important to protect yourself and others in crowded situations.
glad that the contact tracing is over with though.