Rudy Gobert made the decision to miss a playoff game in order to be there for the birth of his first child.

The now four-time Defensive Player of the Year missed his Minnesota Timberwolves second-round game against the Denver Nuggets (Minnesota won), and it drew controversy.

Much of the controversy came from ex-NBA star Gilbert Arenas, who said that the baby is “going to be asleep.”

Gobert heard all the noise, and he brushed it off without much effort, saying he had made this decision long ago.

“This is one thing I decided I was never going to miss in my life,” Gobert told FOX Sports. “I love this game. I dedicated my whole life to this game. But this is one thing that is above that. And that’s being there for the birth of my child. I think everyone in this locker room understands that.”

Rough timing almost caught Scottie Scheffler during the Masters, who said he wouldn’t even think twice about leaving Augusta National if his wife were to give birth during the tournament.

Rudy Gobert #27 of the Minnesota Timberwolves during the second half of the NBA game at Footprint Center on March 29, 2023 in Phoenix, Arizona. The Suns defeated the Timberwolves 107-100.   (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

BILL WALTON’S FORMER COLLEAGUE, JIM GRAY, ‘HEARTBROKEN’ OVER DEATH OF ‘BEST FRIEND’: ‘A NATIONAL TREASURE’

Thankfully, Scheffler’s wife held on, and he was able to win his second green jacket, both of which came within the last three years. 

Their first child was born just a couple weeks before the PGA Championship, where he was then famously arrested.

Gobert’s T-Wolves, though, are now in trouble, as they face getting swept by the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference Finals. The Boston Celtics completed the sweep of the Indiana Pacers on Monday night to make it back to the NBA Finals.

Rudy Gobert #27 of the Minnesota Timberwolves warms up before the game against the New Orleans Pelicans at Target Center on April 9, 2023 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

If the Wolves come back and win, it would be the first 3-0 comeback in NBA history. Ironically, their part-owner Alex Rodriguez was on the losing side of the one time it happened in Major League Baseball, as he was on the 2004 New York Yankees.

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By every measure, Bill Walton was enormously successful, among the most decorated players in the history of college basketball and the NBA.

But Walton had a different definition for personal success, one derived from the teachings of John Wooden, his legendary coach at UCLA.

“The last lesson of life that John Wooden taught us was the measurement of success,” Walton said three years ago, “which he described — and now I comprehend and buy into — is success is the peace of mind that comes with the self-satisfaction of knowing that you’ve done your best.

“It’s really easy to say that, but incredibly hard to accept it, embrace it and believe it.”

Walton, the three-time national college player of the year who went on to win two NBA championships, died of complications from cancer Monday at his home in San Diego. He was 71.

I was interviewing Walton as part of a 2021 story about the San Diego Padres and their hopes in emerging from the long shadow of the Dodgers. I spoke to a lot of San Diegans, among them Walton and filmmaker Cameron Crowe, about their love of the city and its sports teams.

Walton spoke at length about the Padres, the Chargers and his memories of growing up in La Mesa. He had deep affection for Los Angeles too, having won two national championships — and three national college player-of-the-year awards — with the Bruins. What’s more, his son, Luke, played for and coached the Lakers.

“I don’t live in a qualitative, binary-decision-making world where you’re one or the other,” Walton said when asked which Southern California city he preferred. “I’m the luckiest guy in the world. I know all the Dodgers too.”

Then again, Walton didn’t mind sounding like a spokesman for the San Diego Chamber of Commerce.

“Don’t try to drive from Los Angeles to San Diego at any time because everybody from up there is trying to get down here,” he said with a laugh.

“We’re very proud of San Diego. Best beaches, best air, best bicycling, best water, fantastic airport. And everything you could possibly imagine. Incredible facilities, incredible nature, and bordered by the ocean, by Mexico, by Camp Pendleton, by the mountains, which lead to the desert. And it’s all so easily accessible to San Diego.”

Among his fondest childhood memories was watching the Padres, then of the Pacific Coast League, play their home games at Westgate Park, which is now Fashion Valley Mall. He was a pro at chasing down baseballs that left the park.

“When certain guys would come up, I’d say, well, this guy, he’s a left-handed, pull hitter, so I’m going to get in the right-field bleachers along the first baseline. But then when Tony Perez would come up, man, I’m going out into the outfield and I’m going to get that home run ball.”

Foreshadowing a career of sacrificing his body for loose basketballs, he said: “I was quick to that baseball and I was nine and 10 years old. I was not reluctant to jump over the chairs to get to the ball that was bouncing around in the bleachers.”

Walton was 9 when the Chargers relocated to San Diego after their inaugural season in Los Angeles.

“I used to go to the old Balboa Stadium, which is just a half-mile from our house where we live now, where the Chargers used to play on the weekends,” he said. “And I’d go to those games, and when you’re a little tiny boy with red hair and a buzz cut, man, the ushers and the ticket takers were always more than kind to little Billy.”

He said his parents weren’t sports fans, “but they were the greatest parents ever.” And although he didn’t grow up with a television in the home, he remembers tuning in to games on his transistor radio and listening under the covers.

“I listened to Padre games,” he said. “I listened to Dodger games with Vin Scully. I listened to Laker games with Chick Hearn. And then I was most fortunate to come to UCLA and get to know all these people personally.

“I found all these incredible sports heroes as a child. It’s one thing to have a hero. It’s another level to meet that hero, to get to know that hero, and to become friends with that hero and to discover that they’re even better people than you imagined and hope for. And that has been the story of my life.”

Many people might say the same about Walton.

“That’s their choice,” he said. “I try my best to be my best, and I understand the responsibility of the chosen hero to be kind, to be generous, to be open, to be willing. Because I was that guy who was looking. I was looking through that fence.”

Mike Tyson had a brief medical scare on a flight on Sunday, but do not tell that to his next opponent.

The boxing legend’s representatives told the New York Post that the 57-year-old became nauseous and dizzy on a flight from Miami to Los Angeles.

However, Jake Paul says “nothing changed” as far as their heavily anticipated fight this summer. 

The reported incident came less than two months before Tyson and Paul are set to face one another in Dallas for what is slated to be the most-watched boxing match maybe ever, and for at least one generation, it is certainly the most anticipated.

However, Paul is calling B.S.

MIKE TYSON SUFFERS MEDICAL SCARE ON FLIGHT AHEAD OF FIGHT WITH JAKE PAUL: REPORTS

“You love to make s— up before knowing the facts for clicks / likes. Nothing changed,” the 27-year-old wrote on X.

In Touch Weekly was first to report Tyson’s scare, which they categorized as a “medical emergency.”

“Mike had some kind of medical emergency on the plane and paramedics boarded,” a source told In Touch Weekly. “Before the paramedics arrived, the flight issued an announcement asking for a doctor – the message even came on everyone’s screens.”

Mike Tyson’s fight against Jake Paul in Texas this summer has been sanctioned as a competitive boxing match rather than an exhibition, and the rounds will be shorter and the gloves will be heavier. The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation this week approved terms for the July 20 fight at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)

The medical scare reportedly delayed passengers from leaving the plane for 25 minutes. 

“He was in first class, but we were in an exit row and the stewardess was very chatty,” a source told In Touch Weekly. “They asked us to stay on the plane and landed, so paramedics could enter. She said something like, ‘He’s a really important passenger so we wanna make sure he’s OK.’ I knew it was him, but I just mouthed the words ‘Mike Tyson,’ and she nodded her head yes.”

Tyson and Paul held their press tour in both Harlem, New York, and Dallas earlier this month in two separate press conferences. The first one was full of laughter and jokes, but the second was much more serious, with the two both making bold predictions about potential knockouts in the bout.

There are some who have questioned whether Tyson can physically get back in the ring again. He will turn 58 years old next month (June 30), and he openly said his body feels like “s— right now” with soreness, during the New York presser.

That was the humble Tyson, but he was talking the talk a few days later, ripping Paul.

“He’s going to knock me out? Anderson Silva. He couldn’t even knock out the little guys, how’s he going to knock me out?” Tyson said, while previously bringing up Paul’s fight with Nate Diaz as well.

From left to right, Mike Tyson, Nakisa Bidarian and Jake Paul pose onstage during the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson Boxing match Arlington press conference at Texas Live! in Arlington, Texas, on May 16, 2024. (Cooper Neill/Getty Images for Netflix)

“He never knocked out a real man, come on. He didn’t knock out Tommy Fury. I’m going to f— Jake up.”

Well, after playing nice, the rivalry is officially on between the two.

Fox News’ Scott Thompson contributed to this report.

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