The Los Angeles Lakers are interested in Utah Jazz‘s young center Walker Kessler, according to Jovan Buha of The Athletic.
With their reported interest, Bovada listed the Lakers as the odds-on favorite at +350 to land Kessler. However, it doesn’t guarantee that the 7-foot-1 shot-blocking center will end up in Los Angeles.
The latest intel from Buha’s colleague at The Athletic, Sam Amick, suggests the Lakers would have to pay a high price to pry away Kessler, the 22nd overall pick in 2022, from Utah.
“While our Jovan Buha recently reported the Lakers have interest in Kessler, a Jazz source indicated the possible framework of a deal — D’Angelo Russell and multiple first-round picks — would not be of interest,” Amick wrote.
Walker Kessler Could Form Lakers Twin Towers with Anthony Davis
Lakers coach JJ Redick openly said in the summer that he wanted a bruising center to play next to Anthony Davis.
“You certainly have to look at what I think is actually a very good roster, a very balanced roster,” Redick said in an interview with Justin Termine and Eddie Johnson on Sirius XM NBA Radio in July. “We’d love to, we tried, but we’d love to, at some point, get another five man, a big bruising five man.
“You look at the Western Conference right now, whether it’s Denver, Minnesota, OKC with what they added, certainly Memphis, they’re going to be back in the hunt, they added Zach Edey, certain matchups in the playoffs, you’re going to need a lot of size.”
While Kessler is not the prototypical bruising big man, he is a potential double-double machine and one of the best shot-blocking big men in the NBA today.
In Utah’s first five games this season, Kessler is filling up the stats sheet with 8.0 points, a career-high 10.6 rebounds and the league’s third-best 2.6 blocks with 1.4 assists.
Last season, he was the league’s second-best shot blocker with 2.4 per game, behind San Antonio Spurs Rookie of the Year Victor Wembanyama (3.6).
Trade Danny Could Overwhelm Rob Pelinka
In the hypothetical framework above, the Jazz would have to add more salaries to make it legal under the Collective Bargaining Agreement since Russell is earning roughly $15 million more than Kessler.
The plausible additional player that could make the math work is former Laker Jordan Clarkson, who is due for $14 million this season.
So it’s not hard to see why such a Lakers trade package would not budge the Jazz, who values both Kessler and Clarkson highly.
Amick noted that Jazz CEO Danny Ainge had a “history of going big, in a variety of ways” when he was in Boston.
Ainge was the architect of the Celtics’ 2008 championship when he swung the blockbuster trades for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. Then he ushered in the Celtics rebuild by fleecing the Brooklyn Nets for the picks they used to select Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum in exchange for the aging Garnett and Paul Pierce.
Ainge brought his trade wizardry with him to Utah as he extracted eight first-round draft picks, including Kessler, from the Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell trades.
In contrast, the trading history of Lakers vice president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka is shaky at best.
The Lakers’ ill-fated Russell Westbrook trade set them back and they are still reeling from it.
Pelinka’s inexperience would be no match to Ainge’s savviness at the negotiation table.
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