Zero Points in Game 6, $35 Million in the Bank! Shannon Sharpe Calls Rudy Gobert ‘Unplayable’

The Minnesota Timberwolves didn’t just lose Friday night. They got erased. 139-109 at Target Center in Game 6 of the Western Conference Semifinals, a score that felt even worse in the building than it looked on paper. Anthony Edwards left the court while eight minutes remained in regulation, shaking hands with Spurs players on his way to the locker room.

Rudy Gobert, the franchise centerpiece, the player who cost five first-round picks and five players to acquire, finished with zero points. Gobert’s flaws, identified by those who watch him closely as iffy hands and a lack of lateral agility, made him a clean matchup for Wembanyama, who presents the most daunting physical challenge for a traditional center in modern NBA history.

The mentor-protégé dynamic that both men had publicly acknowledged made the outcome land harder. Gobert, who has mentored Wembanyama since the Spurs star was a teenager in France, called it a “great battle” and acknowledged “he took another step” — before adding that the Timberwolves need to examine why they were outplayed in three of six games.

By Saturday morning, Shannon Sharpe had heard enough. On his Nightcap podcast, Sharpe delivered a stat-grounded assessment of what the Timberwolves had been trying to unsee for three postseasons. He didn’t couch it. He didn’t hedge. The co-sign came from the other chair. Joe Johnson, a seven-time All-Star who spent 17 seasons knowing exactly what a max-salary player is supposed to provide in crunch time, didn’t push back.

1. $40 Million Disaster: Shannon Sharpe Slams Rudy Gobert After Zero-Point Elimination

Here’s what Sharpe said, “We’ve seen this far too many times that Rudy Gobert becomes unplayable. You cannot have a guy making 40, $50 million. I don’t care the position — that becomes unplayable. How is my point guard? If I got a point guard, Joe, and I’m paying him 30 $40 million, but I can’t have him on the court in the fourth quarter because he can’t shoot. I can’t have Rudy on the court because not only is he a liability defensively, he’s more of a liability offensively. He give me nothing.”

2. $109.5 MILLION Mistake? The Structural Flaw That KILLED Rudy Gobert’s Playoff Ceiling

Gobert is currently earning $35 million this season under a three-year, $109.5 million extension he signed with Minnesota in October 2024, with salaries escalating to $36.5 million next year and a $38 million player option for 2027-28. He is locked in through at least the 2026-27 season with full guarantees, giving the Timberwolves no clean exit and no short-term relief. The financial entanglement runs deeper than the extension alone. When Minnesota acquired Gobert from Utah in the summer of 2022, he was already under one of the largest contracts in NBA history, a five-year, $205 million deal signed with the Jazz in 2020. The Wolves sent five players and five first-round picks to take on that contract, a trade cost so steep that it restructured the franchise’s draft outlook for most of the decade. The return, on the ledger, has been complicated. Gobert brought genuine defensive infrastructure to a team that needed rim protection and rebounding identity. He helped Minnesota reach back-to-back Western Conference Finals. He is a four-time Defensive Player of the Year, a three-time All-Star, and a career average of better than 11 rebounds and 2 blocks per game. None of that is fiction. But the question Sharpe was actually asking isn’t about the past; it’s about the present and what happens when the playoffs sharpen every deficiency. The offensive limitation isn’t new information. Fans and analysts have long been divided on Gobert’s value, with critics pointing to a career built almost entirely in the paint, no three-point threat, and late-game scenarios where opponents simply pull him away from the basket to create space elsewhere. In the modern playoff NBA, where every serious contender can make a seven-footer pay for standing still on the perimeter, that limitation has structural consequences.

3. After Zero Points and WCS Collapse, Is Rudy Gobert’s Contract Untouchable?

The Timberwolves have now been eliminated in the Western Conference Semifinals in back-to-back seasons, and the western bracket is getting harder, not easier. Gobert himself acknowledged after Game 6 that the team failed to build necessary winning habits during the 2025-26 regular season, agreeing with an assessment Edwards made publicly. It was a rare moment of transparency from a player who has consistently deflected suggestions that his own game is part of the problem. In the closing loss, Gobert and Julius Randle combined for just three points on 1-of-12 shooting in an elimination game. Edwards led Minnesota with 24 points, on 9-of-26 shooting, which tells a story of its own. But without any interior production to stabilize possessions, the offense collapsed in the second quarter and never recovered. San Antonio went on a 20-0 run early in the second period, never trailed, and led by as many as 34 points. The Western Conference as currently constructed offers Minnesota no soft paths. The Spurs, now advancing to face the Oklahoma City Thunder in the conference finals, are led by a 22-year-old Wembanyama who just validated himself against the Wolves’ two-time Western Conference Finals roster. The Thunder, who swept the Lakers in the second round, present a separate set of athletic and systemic problems. Minnesota, meanwhile, heads into the offseason with the same core, the same contract obligations, and a growing internal question about whether the roster around Edwards is actually built to win a title. As one regional columnist put it, Gobert enters the offseason “under contract, but possibly a trade chip for a team that needs to get much better to be a championship contender”. Whether any team would absorb $36.5 million next season for a player who just finished with zero points in an elimination game is an entirely separate negotiation.

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• Rudy Gobert
• Victor Wembanyama