The Utah Jazz’s offseason checklist listed just two crucial items from the moment the regular season concluded: maximize value through the draft, and re-sign Walker Kessler.
Somebody please explain, then, why Kessler and the Jazz are butting heads in contract negotiations for the second straight offseason.
With restricted free agency soon approaching, reports are sprouting from the fertile soil of the NBA offseason — the basketball equivalent of Formula 1’s silly season, in which the public is peppered
by a hailstorm of rumors and reports that athletes will be on the move. If it’s interesting or potentially consequential, the eagerly awaiting public will chomp at the first morsel to hit their news feed.
And the Jazz are dipping their toes into those choppy waters by butting heads with their franchise center, Walker Kessler, for the second consecutive season.
Many, many NBA teams wouldn’t hesitate to overpay for a center this offseason, and letting Walker Kessler venture into the waters of free agency — even restricted free agency — will accomplish one of two things. Either the Jazz are forced to match an expensive offer sheet, or they lose a foundational piece of the roster they have spent the past three seasons meticulously constructing.
Finally, at the brink of fielding a competitive roster for the first time since Royce O’Neale was a Jazzman, Utah is letting a routine ground ball roll right past their glove.
Situations like these often boil down to a rousing game of “Who’s being unreasonable?” We’re forced to question whether Utah is being stingy, or if Walker Kessler’s camp is demanding too great a sum. We could be seeing a little bit of both, with lingering resentment and frustration impacting the numbers on either end of this negotiation. Contract negotiations are typically a tight-lipped interaction between the player’s representation and their team’s front office, so it’s hard to gauge which side needs to give way from an outside perspective.
But as negotiations become tense for the second consecutive year, I’d argue that both sides could do a bit more to meet each other in the middle without threatening free agency.
Alongside Markkanen and Jackson Jr, the Jazz place Kessler as the anchor of what might be the biggest, most fearsome front court in the NBA; if all goes according to plan, that is.
Losing Kessler simply isn’t an option for the Utah Jazz this offseason, and I expect them to match any offer sheet if this indecision eventually dips into free agency. JJJ arrived as part of a plan to fit alongside Kessler in the front court, and they’d be insane to quit on that plan before the pair have shared the court even once.
That’s why I feel the rumors that Kessler is “considering a future outside of Utah” are overblown — literally every NBA player has considered a career outside of their current location, so that means nothing to me. The two sides can and must come to an agreement.
A center of Kessler’s quality is hard to find these days — just ask Los Angeles — and the Jazz have invested far too much into this core of talent to let it slip now.
Sign Walker Kessler — it’s as simple as that.
Calvin Barrett is a writer, editor, and prolific Mario Kart racer located in Tokyo, Japan. He has covered the NBA and College Sports since 2024.
