Minnesota Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert has had a career that surprisingly gives him a really good chance at making the Basketball Hall of Fame when it’s all said and done, as he’s racked up a list of accolades that includes four NBA Defensive Player of the Year Awards and four All-NBA nods. 

Gobert added another significant achievement to his record on Sunday night, becoming the 45th player in NBA history to grab 10,000 career rebounds. Gobert also became just the fifth currently active player to join the 10,000 rebounds club, joining LeBron James, Andre Drummond, DeAndre Jordan and Nikola Vucevic.

Following the game, Gobert took a moment to look back on his historic achievement and the road he took to get there. For someone who has made themselves known for their contributions on the defensive end, Gobert has also been a trustworthy double-double on top of that, in large part because of his elite rebounding skill. 

“It’s just good sometimes to take time to pause and reflect a little bit, you know, just the journey and what’s been accomplished, even though there is so much more to accomplish, it’s good to just relax and look back.”

Gobert also explained that the achievement belongs as much to his teammates throughout the years as it does to himself, because of how much of a team effort it is to collect boards at the NBA level. 

“I think it takes a team effort to team rebound, those long rebounds,” Gobert said. “But for myself I think just being able to adapt, you know, the game evolves, but I think with the game evolving you have to evolve also yourself, you know, if you wanna keep impacting and winning every night.”

In terms of how Gobert has evolved from his first rebound to his 10,000th, the 33-year-old said that it’s mostly about how the league has changed around him. When he was drafted in 2011, centers were still the focal point of plenty of offenses in the NBA. In 2025, the position has been redefined almsot entirely from where it was when Gobert entered the league.

“I think that’s what’s different for myself, whether it’s twelve years ago, dozen years ago, there wasn’t that many shooting bigs on the floor, now every team has a shooting big, so that’s some of the things, like over the course of my career that have pushed me to adapt and I’m grateful for it.”