Anthony Edwards, LaMelo Ball, and Jaden McDaniels flew to France this week to train with Rudy Gobert at his own house.
Nobody in the Minnesota Timberwolves front office sent them.
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Edwards and Ball had already been spotted at the practice facility this summer, running a half-court shooting contest on their own time. McDaniels tagging along across the Atlantic is the bigger data point.
Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic explained the significance to ClutchPoints: “They have decided to do this. They are leading the way with this. They are organizing things with their teammates. I think that especially will resonate with Rudy Gobert … it does mean more to him when he feels completely included, when he feels like his teammates are trying to maximize him as best they can.”
That’s the whole story.
Gobert is entering his fifth season in Minnesota after coming over from Utah, carrying one Defensive Player of the Year award and three All-Defensive selections from a career that started at pick No. 27. The fit question still follows him into every playoff series that stalls out on offense, no matter what he does on the other end of the floor.
Minnesota spent the summer subtracting, too, dumping Julius Randle for cap flexibility in a trade to Brooklyn and moving Naz Reid as part of the deal that brought Ball to town. That’s a lot of turnover for a team that made back-to-back Western Conference Finals before getting bounced in the semis this spring.
Edwards and Ball are the reason anyone still takes Minnesota seriously as a contender. The pairing alone made the rest of the West nervous the moment the trade became official, before either of them had played a competitive minute together.
I spent two years freelancing at fifty bucks an article before I got a real job, running the math on which pitches were worth the gas money to chase down. Three guys spending part of their offseason and their own airfare on a teammate who’s spent four years justifying his own roster spot — I understand that math immediately.
Coaches can install a system. Front offices can clear a cap sheet. Neither can manufacture a locker room deciding, on its own time and its own dime, that the seven-footer matters. Edwards and Ball didn’t wait for training camp to make that case.
He didn’t need a training camp. He needed teammates who’d fly to France.
