Salt Lake City (USA) (AFP)
Serene, fulfilled, determined: the French basketball player Rudy Gobert fully lives his American dream, an existence as "calm" at the foot of the mountains of Utah as animated under the baskets of the NBA, which he assures to "win the title this season "with the Jazz.
Standing in the team's nicely wooded circular locker room, Gobert does not really feel like landing on this snowy evening in Salt Lake City. He has just conceded a heavy defeat against the LeBron James Lakers (121-96), who has uncovered an unusual defensive bankruptcy.
"We have very high goals this year, but today we are not the team we want to be, our defense is not what we were at the beginning of the season, we were the best "We have to work hard, everyone needs to raise their level, but above all, we have to do it together," he said calmly, your voice firm.
The moment is not really conducive to intimate confessions, the person tasting anyway little. But the man keeps his commitments and will speak a few minutes with AFP, after conceding that "there are 60 games left" in the season to forget this one.
As well as disappointments and satisfactions, Rudy Gobert has known quite a lot for almost seven years that he wears the jersey of the Jazz, flocked number 27, as the position to which he was drafted by ... Denver Nuggets who traded him for Erick Green, forgotten since, and a sum of money.
- "Conditioning" -
So Utah's direction for the young Rudy, barely 21 years old and not really upset by the radical change of life, passing from Cholet to Salt Lake City, his million inhabitants, his strong Mormon community, his surrounding nature where the last ones subsist hints of "far west".
"I lived it well because I was impatient to live this new adventure, I knew it would not be easy, but I got conditioned, mentally prepared, and then I used to be far from my family, "said the man who left his home in Saint-Quentin at the age of 15 in Aisne to join the training center in Cholet.
"When I started to understand basketball, it became serious, I wanted to go to the NBA" Gobert recounts that "a lot of players" inspired. "But there was never one I wanted to copy, I never wanted to be anyone else."
By winning in the United States, the son succeeded where the father failed. A father named Rudy Bourgarel, he inherited the imposing size, who evolved three years in NCAA (1985-1988) without being able to be drafted. A father, who then played some matches in France team, but did not wish to see grow Rudy, his brother and sister.
- "Not nostalgic" -
In Utah, where the Jazz landed in 1979 in New Orleans, the 27-year-old Frenchman enjoys great popularity: "It's great to have a community behind you that supports you, appreciates you. as a player, but as a human being, these are things that help in everyday life. "
Radiant, Rudy Gobert assures the being. "I feel good here, I'm very calm, here it's very quiet, I like nature, when I travel a lot and come back here, I can relax. in the mountains, I do not like to walk where there are people ... ", he smiles.
"Every day I tell myself that I still have the chance to do what I'm doing, even if I sacrificed everything, if I worked very hard, it's sometimes to sit down and do it. we're doing, but I'm so focused on the next goals that I do not take a lot of time for that, I'm not nostalgic, "he says.
What are these goals? A first selection at the All Star-Game, which would erase the bitterness of having been forgotten last season, although being named best defender of the League?
"It's not me who controls, it's not me who votes, I play, I help my team, if it's great, if it's not, it's not serious, "he replies. "My goal is to win an NBA title".
© 2019 AFP