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.