Gordon Monson: Warning — this is going to hurt. Rudy Gobert has found a home and Utah wasn’t it

Rudy Gobert loved Utah, still has a house in Utah, but when you hear him talk now about the way he loves Minnesota … well, he says, “I’ve found a home.”

There’s no place like home. And Utah ain’t and, apparently, wasn’t that.

Before anyone around here gets their feelings too bent over that truth, let’s hear out the rest of what Gobert said after winning his fourth Defensive Player of the Year award. Warning — it doesn’t get any better, at least not as it pertains specifically to the Jazz:

“I’ve found a team, a coaching staff, an organization, a city that embraces me, and a group that embraces me. I feel like … it’s like a family. We’re all there for each other. We all really care about one another. We all want to see each other shine. We all want to see each other prosper, whether it’s outside of basketball, so it’s a lot of love. It’s really fun to be a part of something like this when everyone is on the same page and everyone is trying to give everything they have towards one goal. It’s something I’ve always dreamed of. Everyday when I wake up, I’m really grateful to be a part of something like this.”

Let’s all calm down here and ask: What the hell, Rudy?

No, actually, it’s more like: What the hell, Utah Jazz?

None of this is the fans’ fault.

When you see what the Timberwolves are doing, how they’re playing right now, it’s easy to understand the width and depth of comfort the former Jazz center is operating inside of. He very well could be playing for the best team in the NBA, a team that most certainly could win an NBA title in these playoffs. And Gobert frequently talked about winning a championship here in Utah. He said it over and over and over, again.

I’ve got some of the quotes right here.

— “I want to win a championship, that’s why I play, what I play for.”

— “A championship is the most important thing.”

— “It’s not about individual players, it’s about the team winning a championship.”

And from what Gobert said in the aforementioned recent interview, the nice things he chronicled about his current team implied, either with aimed purpose or without it, that those things were absent on the Jazz.

That comes as no shock to those who were paying attention to the makeup of the Jazz in the last season Gobert was here. He was willing to make the attempt to build the best out of it in Utah. And he really did enjoy playing for the fans here, people who hugged him hard as he gave what he could to them in return. But there was something amiss inside the locker room and inside the heads of some of the Jazz players. Not all of them.

Mike Conley has contributed and is contributing to the success of the T-wolves at present. As everybody knows, he’s as good of a teammate as can be found in the NBA and he remains so, winning awards for the encouragement and general congeniality he extends freely to those around him.

In Utah, even when Gobert popped off with his occasional earnest and honest postgame evaluations regarding the way the Jazz performed on certain nights, Conley was mostly supportive, even when deep down his veteran instincts wanted to tell Rudy to stuff a sock in it.

Conley realized that Gobert wanted what he said he wanted — to win.

The big man made some well-established mistakes through those early years, among them the whole incident surrounding COVID and the periodic personality clashes with a certain fellow star teammate with the initials of …

Donovan Mitchell.

It was fairly clear that Rudy Gobert liked himself some Rudy Gobert, just the way Mitchell liked himself some Mitchell.

It would have been in the Jazz’s best interests if those two liked winning as much as they liked themselves individually. There had to be a way for that to happen. Had to be.

But it didn’t. And those players are helping their teams now win playoff series, something they struggled to do in tandem here.

As fans have watched the demise of the Jazz after trading their stars away, along with Conley, they have to wonder what they’ll never know: If the team had been kept together, could it have overcome the difficulties encountered to make deep playoff runs now? Somewhere in that pursuit, could Gobert and Mitchell have found a way to coexist off the court and to thrive on it?

Could all the things Gobert is saying about his team in Minnesota have been said about his team in Utah?

It’s like a family. We’re all there for each other. We care about one another. We want to see each other shine and prosper and share a lot of love. Everyone having fun, on the same page, giving everything they have, working for the same goal. Could it have been a realized dream, something to look forward to and be grateful about every day?

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

All the folks who celebrated when the Jazz hauled in those draft picks in exchange for Gobert, the observers in Utah who laughed at Minnesota for giving up so much, are laughing no more. Celebrations had best be stored away until something tangible and valuable comes from what was gained.

On the other end of that deal, Gobert is wholly tangible, wholly valuable to the team that so badly wanted him. Granted, Minny has some super-gifted players alongside, but there’s no denying what Gobert is doing for the team he’s so fond of now.

So it is that he’s found his home, his family, his squad. He found all of that in a team that embraces him in a way his old team couldn’t or wouldn’t. And the championship he always talked about here is no longer a dream there, it’s a real possibility.

Yeah, there’s no place like home.