The Utah Jazz didn’t wait around to see how Walker Kessler’s restricted free agency would play out. On July 1, they sent him to the Lakers in a deal that brought back two unprotected first-round picks and two first-round pick swaps, and they did it before the whole situation could drag through the summer.
That timing looks smarter by the week.
Utah was already at a standstill with Kessler’s future, so it moved quickly when Los Angeles needed a center and was willing to pay up. The Lakers then gave Kessler a four-year, $130 million deal, and while losing him was hardly ideal, the Jazz got a return that made the decision easy to defend.
The rest of the offseason has only sharpened that view, especially with what’s happening in Detroit.
Pistons center Jalen Duren is still locked in a stalemate with his team, and ESPN’s Tim MacMahon reported Tuesday that the two sides remain far apart on value. According to league sources, Detroit is offering a five-year deal that would pay Duren in the range of $35 million annually. Duren, who is represented by agent Chafie Fields of The Team, is requesting a deal with an average salary in excess of $40 million.
That gap leaves the Pistons in a dangerous spot. Because of how negotiations have gone, Duren could take his $9.6 million qualifying offer, a move that would leave Detroit in a bad place and make the club wish it had been more open to sign-and-trade discussions this summer, including talks with the Lakers.
The Jazz, at least, never let it get that far.
Los Angeles had also met with Duren at the start of free agency, just as it did with Kessler, and viewed him as a "maximum-salary level player" (subscription required), according to Sam Amick of The Athletic. But if the Lakers were going to land Duren, the Pistons would have had to cooperate, and they made clear they didn’t want to.
That leaves Detroit in a messy spot with no easy exit. There is still time for the Pistons and Duren to work things out, but the longer this stretches on, the less reassuring it looks for Detroit. The possibility of him accepting the qualifying offer only feels more real as the offseason goes on.
Even if the two sides eventually agree on a new contract, there would still be damage to repair. That kind of tension can linger into the regular season and become a distraction. Utah would have faced the same risk if its Kessler negotiations had dragged this far, and the Jazz chose not to let that happen.
So far, that decision has held up. And if Kessler falls short of expectations in Los Angeles, it may look even better.
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Jazz Just Got A New Sign Of League-Wide Respect
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Among the newly added broadcasts are a home date with the Lakers on Nov. 23 and a matchup with the Thunder on Jan. 15, both games that should draw plenty of attention well beyond Salt Lake City. For a team trying to raise its profile while staying relevant in a crowded Western Conference, this kind of scheduling matters because it puts Utah in front of a bigger audience, and it also hints at which opponents the league thinks will carry the most interest when the season arrives. [Read more 🡒]