The Utah Jazz got a fever, and the only prescription is more Keyonte George! You know what's better than the assertion that he's been the Jazz's best story this year? That such a statement is debatable. It's actually gotten hard to run out of things to say about George's Year 3 explosion, but something that hasn't been touched up on yet is that he is proof that the Jazz got a great return on Rudy Gobert!
When the Jazz traded Gobert in 2022, the mindset was to acquire as many young players and draft assets as possible, which is how a team starts a rebuild. This is a pretty standard way to lay the foundation for an effective youth movement.
However, it's far from guaranteed that a team that does this will build a winner from it. Take the two biggest trades that happened during the 2019 NBA offseason. While Oklahoma City has only continued to reap the rewards from the demise of the Kawhi Leonard era in LA, thanks to the Paul George trade, New Orleans has essentially nothing to show from the Anthony Davis trade.
It really is up in the air whether a team can make the most of the assets they are given when they trade their franchise player. That's why the Jazz getting a blossoming All-Star guard for Gobert is all the more impressive. Making it even more fantastic is the fact that George wasn't a lottery pick. Teams should always feel fantastic to get a franchise cornerstone outside the lottery.
Walker Kessler was also in that deal
Getting George alone, if that was all the positives the Jazz got from the Gobert trade, makes it an excellent return, but knowing that Kessler too was included in the deal makes it all the better of a swap for Utah.
Even though there is sure to be some drama this offseason, every report has concluded that the Jazz plan to keep Kessler. Having him and George long-term means the Gobert trade fetched two legitimate building blocks for a playoff contender. It hasn't gotten the team results, but it's still pretty easy to see the vision with those two.
They aren't everything Utah needs to make their next playoff team, but they are two crucial ingredients for one. Even better is that there's no positional overlap between the two, meaning the team covered a lot of ground from one trade.
Fans are getting frustrated by the team's lack of progress, but the Gobert trade has shown how much potential the team has from what they've seen from Kessler and George. There's no telling where the team would be right now if they weren't on it.