On an otherwise sleepy day in July, Brian Windhorst set the NBA world on fire with a theatrical monologue about what was going on with the Utah Jazz. The onus of his performance was the franchise's decision to trade Royce O'Neale, a rock-solid 3-and-D player every contender could use, to the Brooklyn Nets for a first-round pick. Windhorst didn't report anything, but inferred it was awfully strange that a team featuring Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert would trade away an important cog in its lineup. He suggested, without saying it out loud, that big changes must be coming.
Exactly two months later, Windhorst couldn't have been more on the nose. Merely hours after he went viral for his dramatic act, Utah traded Gobert to the Minnesota Timberwolves for an obscene haul.