If anyone had told the Utah Jazz fanbase that they were going to lose Walker Kessler, and to the Los Angeles Lakers no less, most, if not all, of the fanbase would have been enraged. However, everyone knows the Lakers paid a great price to get their hands on the ex-center.
Okay, you probably already knew what the Jazz got for Kessler. In a nutshell, it's the Lakers' future, which already looks good with how uncertain theirs is, but making it better is that Kessler's impact is merely hypothetical, and if he doesn't work out, the Lakers don't have options for how to get better because of the trade itself.
Yahoo Sports! Ben Rohrbach ranked Kessler's contract as the second-worst of the offseason (behind Trae Young's extension), not only mentioning what Los Angeles had to give up but also that the basis of the deal was unproven optimism and LA has no exit strategy from it.
"(Kessler's contract) is all just hope. We have not seen it from Kessler... The Lakers, as always, are banking on a lot of things going right for them to be able to compete, only now they have given away the assets they might need in the likely event something goes wrong.
Whether the Lakers like it or not, there is no proof that Kessler is that effective a basketball player, given the four years he spent on a Jazz team that intentionally got worse every season he played there. He'll get that chance in LA, but even if he fits their biggest need, he doesn't change their fortunes entirely, and there's no telling how impactful he will be.
This isn't a shot at Kessler. If anything, he should use this as motivation to prove the skeptics wrong, but it's fair to say that there's a lot riding on his contract for LA, with not much proof beforehand to back it up until he proves otherwise.
If this backfires on LA, the Jazz hit the jackpot
It's not like the Jazz sent Kessler to a bad team. Hell, they sent him to a team that is coming off a second-round playoff exit. However, more teams in the Western Conference will be fighting for a playoff spot this season, which includes the Jazz themselves.
Because the Lakers can't really get much better if this doesn't work out, Utah either has the assets to strengthen their youth movement or could use them to acquire another available impact player, as they just did with Jaren Jackson Jr. five months ago.
The Kessler-Lakers union blowing up their face isn't a sure thing, but it's a possibility. With how expensive he is and what they owe the Jazz no matter what happens, this trade could be remembered fondly for years to come in Utah.
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