Ryan Smith already confirmed Walker Kessler's fate in telling rant

Let the Walker Kessler rumors begin! Or, more accurately, let them intensify! Now that the Utah Jazz offseason is finally here and their tank is officially dead in the water, we turn our attention to Kessler's free agency. Okay, technically, Utah has to take care of their draft situation first, but it's better to confront the elephant in the room sooner rather than later.

In fact, Jazz owner Ryan Smith is way ahead of everyone on that. During his appearance on "The Pat McAfee Show," Smith expressed his belief that the Jazz can win a championship while listing the main ingredients to their title core.

Kessler was among them.

This doesn't change the fact that discussions are likely to get pretty ugly between the two sides this offseason, but it also confirms what every Jazz fan will hope for this summer: Kessler will be back on the team no matter what.

Even if Kessler won't have many bidders this summer (at this point, he may not have bidders at all after all the moves that have been made in the past year and with very few teams having the cap room to make Utah squirm), the Jazz aren't going to underpay him.

Many are looking forward to seeing what Kessler will look like next to Jaren Jackson Jr. after years without a partner-in-crime on defense. He may not be happy with the figure he gets when it's all said and done, but Utah will be thrilled to welcome him back with a clean bill of health.

Ex-Jazz reporter confirms keeping Kessler is top priority

The Athletic's Tony Jones, who used to cover the Jazz for years, more or less confirmed that keeping Kessler on the team is what Utah wants more than anything this summer.

One could argue that retaining their pick should be the Jazz's top priority. Well, one, they pretty much already have done that whether they get the fourth-best odds or not and two, even if they give their pick up to the Thunder, as much as that would suck, it's not like it's the end of the world.

Utah is so loaded with their current roster that losing a lottery pick honestly shouldn't be that big of a deal to them. Losing Kessler would be borderline catastrophic because of how irreplaceable he is on the Jazz's roster. Their post-defense and rebounding would take a huge hit from losing him.

While not a star, Kessler is a glue guy, which is why even if the Jazz may not pay him what he wants, they are still going to give him a huge chunk of change for his services. If there was any doubt that they wouldn't, Smith's words pretty much confirm it.

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