Instant Reaction: Utah Jazz trade Walker Kessler to Los Angeles Lakers | Jazz Notes

Welcome to the Jazz Notes podcast. I'm Ben Anderson. I'm Chandler Holtz. This is an emergency jazz podcast as, obviously, Utah Jazz have made a major, major move and have sent Walker Kessler to the Los Angeles Lakers.

Yes, the deal dropped this morning. Of course, maybe Walker Kessler could have had his first meetings yesterday, and he did. It was reported that he met with the Lakers, of course, and some other teams. And then come out today that it will be a sign-in trade, two unprotected first-round picks from the Lakers, two pick swaps. I believe the unprotected picks are in 2031 and 2033, and then the pick swaps are, what, in 28 and 30?

28-30. The Jazz already have a pick swap in 2028 also with the Cleveland Cavaliers. So basically the Jazz get two bites at the apple that year. It's not supposed to be a great draft. Now two years out, guys, reclassify. You just kind of never know exactly what it's going to look like. But from the people I had talked to looking at future drafts, it doesn't look like 2027 specifically and 2028 are all that good of drafts. But the Jazz get two future unprotected picks today. beyond the 2030s where we don't know what the rules of the draft are going to be. That's why a lot of people have been hesitant to make any moves right now with those picks specifically because this latest round of restructuring on the lottery has been bizarre enough to scare everyone away from making trades with current picks. Beyond that, we just don't know what the rules are going to look like. So it could be really valuable. It could be less valuable. I honestly don't know what to expect from that front yet. With those picks. But, you know, the Jazz had had that 20-31 first from the Cleveland Cavaliers and were not able to really turn it into anything. Or excuse me, from the Phoenix Suns. Yes. And then turn it into Jaron Jackson Jr. They never let it materialize. I don't know if they're ever going to let these Lakers picks materialize, to be honest with you.

Yeah, 100%, as you mentioned. Right now, the current 3-1 lottery that will be going into effect this upcoming year, it has a sunset provision, which means the NBA and the Board of Governors will look at it to see if they want to continue running with that after the 2029 season. So yeah, like you said, we don't know what the lottery or the draft is going to look like by the time these unprotected Lakers picks roll around. But I agree with you. I see both sides of it in that the jazz might not be done. They might just turn this and use some assets to get a different center. Or if they might just stack these assets in a different trade. I think there's a lot of avenues that the jazz can go. And I think that not putting this $130 million deal on their books sort of keeps the name of the game for them, which has been flexibility going forward.

All right. So as of today, I'm going to call this a rare lose-lose trade. Okay. The Jazz are worse today than they were with Walker. Everything I had heard, as of Sunday night, there had not been sign and trade talks. The Jazz were flexible on what to do, how to structure Walker's contract, is kind of my understanding, is the talks I had heard. They