Sometime in the next 24 hours, the NBA will hand down a one-game suspension to Minnesota center Rudy Gobert after he picked up his seventh flagrant foul of the season, this one for hitting Dallas’ Marvin Bagley III in the head and neck area on Friday night.
The NBA imposes a one-game suspension for any player who reaches six flagrant fouls in a season, plus an additional game for every flagrant after that. This will be Gobert’s second one-game suspension for a flagrant foul this season, his first came after his sixth flagrant, a reckless closeout on fellow Frenchman Victor Wembanyama.
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The suspension will cost Gobert $201,149 in salary (the Timberwolves get half of that as a luxury tax credit).
Postgame, Gobert expressed frustration that these calls against him only go one way.
“I get hit in the head almost every game and I never get flagrants, but when sometimes inadvertently I hit somebody in the head, they never miss,” Gobert said in the Timberwolves locker room. “They’re always very hard on me on that even especially when it’s not intentional. So, we’re going to appeal it and hopefully they look at it and they see that it was just an accident. We will see. Just because I’m 7-foot doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt when I get hit in the head. I’m close to a superhuman, but I am not.”
Gobert is averaging 11.2 points, 11.3 rebounds and 1.6 blocked shots per game and will likely finish in the top three in Defensive Player of the Year voting at the end of the season. Minnesota’s defense is 8.8 points per 100 possessions worse when he is not on the court this season.
