Jazz's embarrassing weakness will raise Walker Kessler's price

Even after losing Walker Kessler for the season, the Utah Jazz continue to play with fire with their draft position after their win over the Detroit Pistons. No matter how the season turns out, the Jazz have shown themselves to be pretty lousy defensively, and one particular defensive stat not only sticks out like a sore thumb but also makes Kessler all the more expensive to keep.

A statistic from the X account Stat Defender shows that the Jazz are among the worst teams at rim defense, as only two teams have been worse than them.

This was shared on Christmas Eve, making it somewhat outdated, but it's not like they've gotten any better three days later, as they currently still rank in the bottom three, per NBA.com. Because Kessler hasn't been available for the majority of the season, he'd be a fool not to use this as leverage in extension talks this summer.

Many believe this will be the last year the Jazz will (intentionally) be bad and plan to start trying next season. That means they will need every single cog they can. Kessler's rim protection is a necessity, which he will likely point out when he and Utah talk extension this summer, and a stat like this proves his case.

The Jazz were bad in this area last year too, but it wasn't Kessler's fault

One could play devil's advocate and point out that the Jazz were in the bottom three in this stat last year, per NBA.com. However, upon further inspection, Kessler's individual rim protection was still exceptional: teams shot minus-10.4% at the rim when Kessler protected it compared to the rest of the field, per NBA.com, indicating that teams typically went to the Jazz's rim when Kessler wasn't there to protect it, even if he was on the floor.

And that makes sense. Kessler has sadly been Utah's lone plus-defender, so teams understandably scheme around taking him out of the equation on that side of the floor. He has simultaneously shown why he is one of the league's best rim protectors while also showing that the Jazz need more than just him if they hope to be a good defensive team going forward.

For Utah to become a legitimate playoff contender again, shoring up its defense is a must. That starts with making sure Kessler is on the team long-term. The Jazz will play hardball because of his restricted free agency, but it would be smart for them not to overplay their hand, as numbers like these are hard to argue against.