No Extension for Walker Kessler?

[Handlogten's Heros]

This stinks, man. Thanks for the reports.

Yeah if they had actually taken it to the deadline and really dug in... I wouldn't be like this.

 

[underdog]

A lot of talk about Kessler’s situation here. Kind of hard because it seems we don’t know the facts. But I’ll say this. Teams don’t give a player a big contract until he’s proven that he deserves it. If Kessler had shown he can shoot, pass, and defend the perimeter in addition to protecting the rim, he would have a fat extension in his pocket right now. But he doesn’t because, when it comes to contracts, teams don't want to make decisions based on guesses about whether a player will develop his skills later. Now, if Kessler becomes versatile, the Jazz will offer him a nice contract, but it may not be much different than the contract they would’ve given him this summer had he shown those skills earlier.

 

[LogGrad98]

This is looking pretty stupid and short-sighted right about now. Once game, yeah, but still. What a ****ing Game it was

 

[KqWIN]

So just to play devils advocate.....how many teams can actually pay Walker Kessler next summer?

WAS
CHI
LAL
BKN
DET

The first 3 seem to be teams that would be very interested in Kessler. BKN may have moderate interest in him....they still have Nic Claxton but they don't have their 2027 pick. DET doesn't make sense as a destination.

There are a few teams that could get there, of course, but in reality they would need to make moves before trade deadline to clear money. I doubt anyone is going to make a salary dump type trade just to make an offer sheet.

I think people are drawing parallels to Kuminga/Grimes/Thomas....IMO it's not the same situation as Kessler will certainly have some buyers. I think the Hayward parallels are valid and painful to think about, especially when it comes to tarnishing the relationship. But on the optimistic side, remember when nobody tried to screw the Lakers on an offer sheet with Austin Reaves? If the Jazz put out a message that they will match anything, maybe nobody wastes their time and they move onto something else.

After actually reviewing the cap space teams....I still think we're looking at a mistake but the Jazz position in RFA is stronger than I had thought. One team could really blow up your spot though.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

So just to play devils advocate.....how many teams can actually pay Walker Kessler next summer?

WAS
CHI
LAL
BKN
DET

The first 3 seem to be teams that would be very interested in Kessler. BKN may have moderate interest in him....they still have Nic Claxton but they don't have their 2027 pick. DET doesn't make sense as a destination.

There are a few teams that could get there, of course, but in reality they would need to make moves before trade deadline to clear money. I doubt anyone is going to make a salary dump type trade just to make an offer sheet.

I think people are drawing parallels to Kuminga/Grimes/Thomas....IMO it's not the same situation as Kessler will certainly have some buyers. I think the Hayward parallels are valid and painful to think about, especially when it comes to tarnishing the relationship. But on the optimistic side, remember when nobody tried to screw the Lakers on an offer sheet with Austin Reaves? If the Jazz put out a message that they will match anything, maybe nobody wastes their time and they move onto something else.

After actually reviewing the cap space teams....I still think we're looking at a mistake but the Jazz position in RFA is stronger than I had thought. One team could really blow up your spot though.

The issue is Was and Bkn will have a lot of space. I think Nets would move Claxton and would likely prefer Walker. So if you are sitting on like $100M in cap space... why not throw a $40M offer at Walker?

Chicago and Lakers will have interest but may not get overly wild. Would likely try to engage in a sign and trade. So maybe its 35Mish and PO type thing. Maybe they all go a different direction... but who? The FA list is not great. Walker may legit be the #1 FA (Lebron excepted). Don't have to get an actual offer sheet to end up getting leveraged into a deal 25-40% higher than you could have signed him to.

The best "steals" in business... are ones an acquirer got before it hit the open market. We had exclusive bargaining rights and said "nah".

 

[NUMBERICA]

Please give me evidence, any kind, of what Walker was willing to take.

I hope you’re right, but the absence of information means very little. We had 0 evidence the Hayward situation would play out the way it did, and yet, it happened and was completely logical.

Furthermore, Locke is a leaky faucet with information, and he basically leaked what the Jazz’s thinking and position were. There are other tea leaves.

With the information available (including Walker’s own comments on the matter), it would be logical that Walker is biding his time and not bought in.

I hope you are right. But it is exceedingly rare that people behind the scenes put everything out in public.

 

[NUMBERICA]

The issue is Was and Bkn will have a lot of space.

The underlying issue with all of these cap space questions is that cap rules make it really important to spend to the salary floor. Teams with enough space will be looking for something to blow capspace on.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

I hope you’re right, but the absence of information means very little. We had 0 evidence the Hayward situation would play out the way it did, and yet, it happened and was completely logical.

Furthermore, Locke is a leaky faucet with information, and he basically leaked what the Jazz’s thinking and position were. There are other tea leaves.

With the information available (including Walker’s own comments on the matter), it would be logical that Walker is biding his time and not bought in.

I hope you are right. But it is exceedingly rare that people behind the scenes put everything out in public.

The Locke thing is important. He sucks with cap stuff. That was something he heard and repeated as a hypothetical.

The fact that we don't have numbers is actually a smoking gun in a way that they didn't negotiate. We know for instance Tari Eason turned down $100M because not all of it was guaranteed.

What we know... Jazz stated they didn't want to compromise their cap space and stated there would be no extension or negotiations. Does that sound like they negotiated or got to any kind of real number?

 

[KqWIN]

The issue is Was and Bkn will have a lot of space. I think Nets would move Claxton and would likely prefer Walker. So if you are sitting on like $100M in cap space... why not throw a $40M offer at Walker?

Chicago and Lakers will have interest but may not get overly wild. Would likely try to engage in a sign and trade. So maybe its 35Mish and PO type thing. Maybe they all go a different direction... but who? The FA list is not great. Walker may legit be the #1 FA (Lebron excepted). Don't have to get an actual offer sheet to end up getting leveraged into a deal 25-40% higher than you could have signed him to.

The best "steals" in business... are ones an acquirer got before it hit the open market. We had exclusive bargaining rights and said "nah".

Yeah, like I said. It only takes one team to blow up your spot. And I don't have an argument as to why WAS wouldn't do it. They could do a short term max.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Yeah, like I said. It only takes one team to blow up your spot. And I don't have an argument as to why WAS wouldn't do it. They could do a short term max.

Wiz get revenge for us blowing up the Ace Bailey shenanigans.

 

[NUMBERICA]

Yeah, like I said. It only takes one team to blow up your spot. And I don't have an argument as to why WAS wouldn't do it. They could do a short term max.

I think it’s basically an inevitability. If the Jazz don’t want to pay the max they need to trade him sooner than later. Preferably not to the Lakers but maybe.

 

[fishonjazz]

This is looking pretty stupid and short-sighted right about now. Once game, yeah, but still. What a ****ing Game it was

Plus, he looked amazing last year as well. Led the league in offensive rebounds iirc. Averaged a double double. 2.4 blocks per game which was second in the nba. As a 23 year old being limited on a tanking team.
Dude was already bonafide

 

[jumpin bean]

Head scratching stuff

 

[tksavis]

Question about how next steps of restricted free agency work. Do we have a chance to talk extension before others start putting offers in (after the season ends)? Or do we now just have to wait and see what comes in from the market?

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

I hope you’re right, but the absence of information means very little. We had 0 evidence the Hayward situation would play out the way it did, and yet, it happened and was completely logical.

Furthermore, Locke is a leaky faucet with information, and he basically leaked what the Jazz’s thinking and position were. There are other tea leaves.

With the information available (including Walker’s own comments on the matter), it would be logical that Walker is biding his time and not bought in.

I hope you are right. But it is exceedingly rare that people behind the scenes put everything out in public.

I'm sure HH is right about the Jazz not wanting to negotiate. I just doubt it was a one way thing. I just think any logical agent would see the center market and want their player to get to market.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

I'm sure HH is right about the Jazz not wanting to negotiate. I just doubt it was a one way thing. I just think any logical agent would see the center market and want their player to get to market.

Agents want to get paid. Just like your real estate agent... if you get 20% more that is great but mostly they just want to get pen to paper. A lot can happen in 12 months. An agent locking in commissions would be a much bigger priority over maximizing the dollars in 12 months. The agent this summer may not be the agent next summer.

One side announced they aren't negotiating and cited cap space as the reason. The other side stated frustrations. Its about as one sided as it gets.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Question about how next steps of restricted free agency work. Do we have a chance to talk extension before others start putting offers in (after the season ends)? Or do we now just have to wait and see what comes in from the market?

Yes. They will have a window to talk. If his agent is worth his salt he will know what is out there for him and will have zero reason to settle with us for any kind of discount in that brief negotiating period.

 

[framer]

Meh, Walker is a really good player who isn't a Max player. Those negotiations are always difficult. I love Walker, there have not been many bigger Walker defenders on the board than me, but there are reasons to wait on a contract.

1. Walker is way easier to deal as is than if he was signed to a large contract. Half the people on this board lamented not trading Lauri on his previous contract because now he is difficult to move on his new larger contract. If the Jazz made a mistake there, then this is a correction.

2. Signing Walker to a large contract locks your team into an identity. The Jazz have a lot of options on how to build their team right now. If you commit to Kessler, you are locking in to a certain play style, a play style that we just recently failed at. Conversely, this limits his league wide appeal. He is also a better target as a finishing piece rather than a building block.

3. Squeezing really good, non Max players as RFAs has a solid record of success. If he's good enough to start a bidding war, great! We win. If the jury is still out, we likely get him a a great price. What you cannot do is overspend on a Center in the modern NBA if that center is not Jokic.

That being said, I hope Kessler plays here for years to come.

 

[JimLes]

Man, I freely admit to nothing almost nothing about the cap because it's math and utterly boring, but can someone explain how it's even possible for the Lakers to have two players making 100 million between them and somehow be in a position to even make trades, let alone sign free agents?

 

[KqWIN]

I guess my final conclusion on this is that Kessler's next contract is mostly up to what WAS (or anyone else) wants to do. They can give any contract Kessler wants and F us over. Even if nobody offers Kessler a deal, it doesn't mean we win out on waiting. If he plays well we're still probably playing him more than he asked for. We can't really know unless we know what Kessler asked for....but it's logical to think that the better Kessler plays the worse decision it was for the Jazz and vice versa. We protected ourselves against the possibility Kessler performs against the risk of him playing better and losing out on the discount we could have had.

Ultimately, I think the advantages we had in a potential rookie extension are much greater than RFA and being at the will of other teams. This is all without considering the potential damage to the relationship with Kessler this may have caused.