Brian Windhorst Explains His Viral Jazz Rant on ‘First Take’

ESPN’s Brian Windhorst was the talk of the sports world in the midst of NBA free agency Friday because of a viral monologue during First Take. In the strange and somewhat hilarious rant, Windhorst continuously called the Jazz trading Royce O’Neale to the Nets for a future first round draft pick “very strange” and appeared to just repeat the same thing over and over without directly connecting it to a bigger picture. 

Shortly after the bizarre moment, the Jazz traded Rudy Gobert to the Timberwolves in a blockbuster deal and Windhorst now claims he knew it was going to happen the whole time. He just didn’t want to directly say it. 

On Wednesday, he explained what happened in the segment while on the Brian Windhorst & Hoop Collective podcast. 

“It really became more popular as a meme than actually what I said,” Windhorst said. “Look, I knew the Jazz were pretty close to trading Rudy Gobert. To be honest with you, part of what I was doing was trying to do was avoid aggregation. Because if I come out and go I think the Jazz are going to trade Rudy Gobert today, then everything on the internet is ‘Windhorst Report: Jazz trade Gobert.’ And then maybe they don’t trade him.”

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He detailed that he didn’t want to say anything just in case the deal fell apart and he would be seen as “the idiot.” 

“In this world of aggregation, I have to get more creative because you get pinned down on sometimes four words,” he said. “You say 700 words and you get pinned down to four words, and I’ll continue to get pinned down to four words because it’s what I do, but I have to get creative and avoid aggregation and so that was me avoiding aggregation in a setting where I had some time on national television.”

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For more Utah Jazz coverage, go to Frozen Rope: Inside The Jazz.