Utah
The story behind the Utah Jazz’s elite social media troll job
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minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah assistant coach Sean Sheldon strolled out onto the Delta Center court for pregame warmups with an interesting shirt Sunday.
The shirt? A tee with the team’s equipment manager, Adam Klauke, smiling face and “GOAT” written underneath it.
Usually, a coach’s pregame attire is meaningless. Most of the time coaches wear the official Jazz get-up or another random shirt from the organization. This one, though, felt intentional.
The shirt was a callback to a viral post from the Jazz social team following Utah’s win over Milwaukee in early January. The idea for that post came from one strange quote.
When talking about his team’s struggles, Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo said everyone needed to be better — and he meant everybody.
“It starts from the equipment manager — he has to wash our clothes better,” Antetokounmpo said.
Antetokounmpo probably didn’t mean to throw shade at the equipment manager, though. He was mostly speaking in generalities and used some very specific examples; the guy who handles all the equipment just so happened to get the random call out.
But it was hard to ignore the ridiculousness of the quote.
Those comments came only a few days before the Jazz played the Bucks in Milwaukee in early January. So as the Jazz social team thought of ways to frame a potential Jazz win, their own equipment manager was brought to the table.
With a post featuring Klauke, social media manager Gabby Hundman had one question: “Am I even allowed to?”
The answer was an overwhelming yes.
Hundman reached out to Klauke for permission for such a post, but “I think he thought I was kidding. He was like, ‘Haha, OK’”
Still, he sent Hundman a selfie of him at the Bucks home arena to use if necessary. That, though, was not needed.
As luck would have it, a few games earlier, content producer Hayley Mettenet had grabbed a clip of Klauke on the court following a Jazz win. It was accidental, but it was exactly what the team was looking for. Not only was there “Jazz win” sparkling in the arena, but Kluake was also holding game balls — yet another callback to another Antetokounmpo incident this season.
“Having the game balls in it was just a little too perfect, and Klauke is just precious in that clip,” Hundman said. “It was honestly like such a perfect clip.”
There was just one worry: Would people get the joke?
“I was a little nervous about people not knowing what it was,” Hundman said. “Internally and dedicated Jazz fans know who he is, but our audience has become so international that I was like, are people gonna get this? But it was honestly just aligned with NBA Twitter so perfectly.”
Even if people didn’t get it, it was easily explained. Soon, it was an inside joke that all NBA fans could appreciate — including fans of the Bucks.
“I can’t even be mad, posting the equipment manager is hilarious,” one Bucks fan tweeted.
Heck, even players thought it was fun. When the Jazz were in New Orleans last month, Klauke was stopped by a suddenly excited Pelicans player.
“You’re the guy from the tweet!” the player said.
Klauke quickly texted Hundman, “This is your fault.”
To which Hundman replied, “Or I made you a star.”
Or as Sheldon’s shirt proclaimed, a “GOAT.”