The Utah Jazz, Walker Kessler, and Keyonte George all got what they wanted this summer. The Jazz kept a core piece of their team for the foreseeable future (and arguably at a discounted price), George gets a sizable pay raise for the team he wants to play for, and Kessler got the money he believed he was owed.
The one shame of it is the fact that the Jazz's decisions with Kessler and George were linked with one another. In a world without those tax aprons and only the luxury tax, Utah would have been more than happy to pay both of them to stay on the team, but because the NBA is more restrictive than ever when it comes paying players, one of them had to go.
Even though George's new deal doesn't come into affect until next season, he and Kessler would have been paid over $30 million each over multiple years on top of the $50 million Utah was paying to Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. each.
Someone had to go, and it was clear Utah believed Kessler was the odd man out.
Why it was easier to do this now than later
Again, the Jazz could have easily kept all four of them, gone over the NBA's tax aprons for two years, then decided what to do next, but the problem would have been juggling who to pay and who to let go.
We've seen from Boston and Minnesota that teams are well aware when they are making trades to get under the second apron so they have the leverage to make the most lopsided deal possible to make that happen. The Jazz would have entered a similar predicament when they would have had to choose between George, Kessler, JJJ and Markkanen.
Not only would they have to pick but some teasm would have badly undersold for one of them because they knew what Utah would have tried to do. The Kessler situation gave the Jazz the rare opportunity to score big time with draft assets while the chance was there.
It's not an indictment on Kessler at all, as there is a solid chance he will work out with the Lakers, but Utah had the rare chance to both own a team's future draft capital while talking care of a problen before it became one. One would say they hit two bird with one stone, but knowing George's extension came not too long after it, it's fair to say it was three.
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