The Utah Jazz knew what they were giving away when they traded Walker Kessler. Hence, why they got as much as they did for him. His departure defintiely will be somewhat of a setback. The two questions at hand is how big of a setback and what will Utah do to compensate for losing him?
Well, the first quality Kessler is known for is his rim protection. He is a presence on the inside, something the Los Angeles Lakers definitely needed and paid up the ante for. While the Jazz have Jaren Jackson Jr., they also added other players that provide rim protection, like Jaxson Hayes and Mo Bamba.
And that started showing results. They can replace Kessler in the aggregate to some degree even if they aren't the same caliber of player. Jazz.com's Eric Spyropoulos revealed (per Cleaning the Glass) that the Jazz allowed the lowest frequency of shots at the rim during the preseason.
Preseason play always comes with an asterisk, and odds are, we won't see Utah repeat the same success in the regular season, but these are the kind of numbers Utah wants to see in light fo the challenges ahead of them in a post-Kessler world.
It shows that despite how good he is as a player, his impact could be more replaceable than we thought.
Alas, shot-blocking isn't all Kessler provides
Utah passed its first, inconsequential test post-Kessler in terms of rim protection, but the real challenge is coming for them when they face real competition. More than that, that's not all they have to replace. Kessler was also an elite rebounder. With Jusuf Nurkic out because of his toe injury, that could be a pressing issue.
The Jazz have tried to get ahead of this by bringing back Tony Bradley, who's specialty is his rebounding, but he's also a journeyman for a good reason. Utah will definitely have their hands full replacing Kessler as a rebounder. The center-by-committee approach could be an effective but limited strategy.
This season, Utah is simply going to see what will work for them and what won't. Their big man rotation will definitely get plenty of attention this season. It boasts plenty of talent even with no Kessler, but talent doesn't cover every flaw no matter how much we would love it too.
The biggest takeaway is that the Jazz might be so helpless fromt he void Kessler left after all. Even if it may get bad, we got our first hint that it might not be as bad as we thought it was.
Add us as a preferred source on Google