The Utah Jazz have officially tipped off their campaign to help Rudy Gobert secure his second Defensive Player of the Year award.
NBA teams employing creative strategies to help woo NBA Awards voters for their players is nothing new. However, the Utah Jazz are reinventing the wheel with their latest push for year-end hardware.
Rudy Gobert is making a strong push to repeat as the league’s Defensive Player of the Year, to be sure, but in order to help the big man get over the hump, the team is striking a distinctly retro vibe befitting their musical nickname and NOLA roots — by crafting commemorative vinyl records on his behalf.
Dubbed “Gobert/Encore 2019,” the decorative album features Gobert on the cover, doing his best John Coltrane a la the jazz legend’s 1957 album “Coltrane” by Prestige Records. The gold-colored album was sent to around 100 NBA awards voters.
Here’s a side by side comparison of the albums —
Original Coltrane album vs. Rudy Gobert DPOY campaign album. Awesome concept and execution by @utahjazz pic.twitter.com/NFzV3DWcxB
— Rev. Ryan Aston (@RyanAston) April 5, 2019
Per the Jazz, the albums were pressed at United Record Pressing in Nashville, Tennessee, the same company that pressed Jay-Z’s ” The Black Album” and Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue.”
The jackets were printed at Dorado Music Packaging in L.A. In the place of liner notes, the Jazz have included stats and comments on Gobert’s defensive dominance from a slew of NBA people supporting the Stifle Tower’s DPOY candidacy.
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As much as I dig the album and throwback vibe the Jazz have tapped into here, I think the numbers ultimately tell the tale of why Gobert is a no-brainer choice to repeat.
My favorite stats include his league-leading (as of April 1) defensive real plus/minus score of 4.50, defensive box plus/minus of 5.1, 5.5 defensive win shares and the fact that opponents connect on shots at a rate nearly 11 percent below their norms when Gobert is the closest defender within six feet of the hoop.
And those just scratch the surface of a lengthy DPOY-worthy resume.
Time will tell whether Gobert’s efforts will be rewarded with year-end gold once again, but the Jazz’s stylish effort to keep his name firmly entrenched in voters’ minds is epic.