The Minnesota Timberwolves and center Rudy Gobert have secured his stay in Minneapolis for a few more years.
The Western Conference contender and the 33-year-old big man have agreed to a three-year extension worth $110 million, according to league insider Shams Charania of ESPN.
The agreement has a player option in the final year which will keep Gobert in Minnesota until the end of the 2027-28 NBA season.
The Frenchman is currently on a five-year deal worth $205 million, which he signed with his former team Utah Jazz in December 2020.
That contract kicked off during the 2021-22 NBA season and remained in effect when he was traded to the Timberwolves in the summer of 2022.
Regarded as one of the league’s top defensive players, Gobert earned his fourth NBA Defensive Player of the Year award in 2023-24, his first with Minnesota. He averaged 2.1 blocks in a bounce-back season after a challenging first year in Minneapolis.
The 7-foot-1 center also tied Ben Wallace and Dikembe Mutombo for the most DPOY awards in NBA history.
Gobert chose to forgo the remaining one year on his current contract, which is a more lucrative $46.6 million player option for the 2025-26 NBA season, opting instead for the new long-term deal that will pay him an average of $36.6 million annually from 2025-26 to 2027-28.
This extension provides the Timberwolves with more financial flexibility, especially since they also signed star Anthony Edwards to a max deal worth $260 million in the summer of 2023, which takes effect this season.
For Gobert, this deal allows him to secure a significant salary even until his age-35 season, and it could likely be his last big payday as he embarks on the remaining prime years of his career.
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