Brian Windhorst Knew Something Fishy Was Up With the Utah Jazz Before Rudy Gobert Trade

Brian Windhorst sent Twitter into a frenzy Friday morning with a long, winding tale of how something strange was going on with the Utah Jazz. The veteran ESPN NBA insider knew something was afoot, but couldn’t quite spell it out. When the Jazz traded Rudy Gobert to the Minnesota Timberwolves Friday afternoon, Windhorst officially became the NBA’s Nostradamus.

A minor trade on Thursday sent Windhorst’s radar spinning. The Jazz traded Royce O’Neal to the Brooklyn Nets for a future first-round pick. On the surface, the deal made little sense. O’Neal might be Utah’s best defender and is a solid starter on the wing. To surrender that for what will likely be a mid-round pick seemed strange. That said, it was a relatively small trade that didn’t make waves, mostly because the drama surrounding Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving sucked all the oxygen out of the room. But it sent Windhorst’s antenna up.

Here’s what he had to say about the situation hours before the Gobert trade was reported: