The last two games for Rudy Gobert have possibly been his worst with the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Wolves' big man fumbled away numerous passes thrown his way, and the usual defensive brilliance was largely muted.

It began Monday night against the Cleveland Cavaliers when Gobert missed all nine of his shots to go with a pair of turnovers. Then on Wednesday against the Golden State Warriors, he yet again did not make a field goal, going 0-for-4 with just a single point, and was taken off the floor for much of the second half with the Wolves needing additional offense for an attempted comeback.

Across 910 career games, only eight times has Gobert taken four or more shots and failed to make a single one. Two of those games happened this week. The nine missed shots against the Cavaliers were the most in his career in a game without a made field goal.

"Rough couple days," Gobert said following practice about his recent stretch of poor play. "A lot of things that I gotta finish that I didn’t finish. Gotta keep putting in the work and finishing strong, especially around the rim. That’s been important for our team, and I hold myself at the highest standard for that. Definitely gotta be better."

Each game was bad enough, but paired together, it becomes a confusing stretch of play from Gobert, who has the second-highest effective field goal percentage in the history of the NBA.

The Rudy Gobert paradox

The broader problems that are currently being seen with Gobert's game are nothing new. Gobert is an astounding defensive presence. He covers for so many of the Wolves' issues, and on the current roster that lacks size, he has become even more invaluable than ever before.

On the other end, Gobert's deficiencies on the offensive end are both incredibly loud and detrimental to the team's efficiency. It begins with a fumble of a pass or a missed layup, and by the end of the game, it turns into his teammates refusing to even look his way.

That is where the contradiction lies. Gobert is simultaneously paramount to everything the Timberwolves are trying to do while also being their Achilles' heel. The Wolves need every bit of his defensive ability, but having him out on the floor makes everything more difficult on offense.

Many will clamor for the Wolves to play Gobert less, but that is not really a legitimate option. Playing small, without a center, would leave Minnesota with a sizeable deficiency in defense and rebounding. Joan Beringer can and likely will continue to see more minutes as the season goes along, but the 19-year-old Frenchman is still learning on the job, getting his first real taste of consistent NBA minutes.

There is a real question about whether or not you can win at the highest levels with Gobert. Of course, teams have proven they can win a significant number of regular-season games and even a series or two with Gobert, but the possibility of winning four straight playoff rounds seems incredibly difficult given his deficiencies on the offensive side of the ball.

Considering the New York Knicks just won the championship with Karl-Anthony Towns, who is similar to Gobert but for opposite ends of the floor, the likely answer is yes, another team can likely do the same with Gobert.

As the Knicks did with Towns, the Wolves will need to get the most out of Gobert's game. It feels counterintuitive to place further emphasis on Gobert's offensive game after such a brutal stretch, but the alternative is placing a permanent ceiling on what this Timberwolves team can be.

Maximizing the current Wolves roster

The Timberwolves can no longer continue the trend of ignoring Gobert rolling open to the rim on offense. To come close to reaching their goals as a team, the Wolves will, on some level, need to make Gobert a valuable part of the team's offense.

That starts with Gobert, who cannot have games like this week, where he is coughing up every ball thrown his way and failing to make a shot. It is also on Gobert's teammates and the Wolves' coaching staff to generate easier looks that are more easily converted into points.

"We gotta find him a little more cleanly. We’ve not been able to do that," Chris Finch said after Wednesday's loss to the Warriors. "He’s gotta catch and finish better. He had 16 chances in and around the paint in the Cleveland game; he didn’t finish well. He’s gotta get back to playing with a little bit more force down there, and we got to find him a little cleaner."

The best way for that to happen is for Gobert and the Wolves' new point guard, LaMelo Ball, to build pick-and-roll chemistry. The Charlotte Hornets thrived with Ball as a pick-and-roll team, and that should carry over to Minnesota with Gobert as one of the best screeners in the NBA.

That process will take time and will likely have plenty of speed bumps around the league. In a video that went viral after the game, Ball and Jonathan Kuminga could be seen arguing with Gobert on the bench during a timeout.

LaMelo Ball had words for Rudy Gobert on the bench.

(h/t @1momo1__)

pic.twitter.com/w7GLas6iEi

— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) October 29, 2026

Gobert the next day was unaware that the clip had made its way around social media, but clarified the situation, saying, "In the moment, I didn’t feel like it was anything bad. And there’s been bad things in the past. But that wasn’t anything bad."

"Sometimes, people make an assumption, and it’s totally something different with the angles and stuff. There might be some of that. But I didn’t feel any animosity. There was some frustration, for sure. I was frustrated. They were frustrated. Those guys have been great."

With Anthony Edwards set to miss a couple of months following arthroscopic surgery in his right knee, the on-court relationship between Gobert and Ball has become paramount to the team's short- and long-term success.

Right now, without Edwards, the Wolves need as many options for efficient offense as possible. They are trying to replace 30 points per game, and only so much of that can be made up by individual players taking more shots.

Even when Edwards comes back healthy, the only way for the Wolves to reach the mountaintop this season will be by breaking the paradox by converting Gobert from a liability on one end of the floor to an offensive weapon.