2026-27 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

i was hacking at your contention that kessler is an overrated defender. i don't believe this is true, and again, pretty much everyone who spends a lot of time looking at these things is aligned on this.

and i'm sure we'll be chopping it up all year, lol.

 

He is overrated, for what we will be asking of him IMO. With a roster devoid of defensive minded players, we need a mobile 5 that can cover ground laterally, in order to cover up mistakes. That's not him..he's toast if he has to move laterally. He's fine paired with athletic wings, especially a 4. We don't have that. I think people expecting Walker to have an AD type of effect on our defense, are going to be disappointed. If he was proficient at that; he'd still be in Utah.

 

The full article is well worth the read


Here's some more info from it

Then the other options are:

We need at least one of those even if we sign Kuminga.

 

Couple other former Laker bigs found new homes today


How many bigs do they need in Utah?


Dave on the Kuminga pitch

 

i don't get the salary hardball here, but i guess i'm not a pro or whatever.

i also think that if dallas would take vando back, i'd eat washington's deal. he's played well in exactly the role we're looking for, imo (defend the other team's top forward, play connector on offense). so much so that i'm not sure the long-term contract is a bad thing.

i'm pretty sure vando for washington works straight up.

i might prefer it to kuminga; i just don't see dallas dealing with us.

still all in on z. williams, too. think he could have djj breakout with us.

 

He’s not as a good as a shooter as Wiggins. Not a great shooter. Just a pure scorer. He’s fast at his size and big. Don’t mistake him for Reggie Miller. But he’s a bucket getter. If he figures it out here you’re looking at a Malik Monk situation and I think you’ll want to pay him. I’d like to have him under team control. For 2 years.

 

separate note: i STILL don't get the malik monk angle with kuminga. if i'm him/his agent, i'm not buying that. further, if i'm us, i'd rather just find a way to keep his bird rights so that the second part of the monk scenario (him walking because we can't possibly pay him after blowing up) doesn't happen.

there has to be a middle ground here. again, knecht/laravia out (possibly to other teams) with a couple seconds, kuminga in at 2/35 with a PO and bird rights. feel like everyone wins. my suspicion was atlanta was holding out to see if they could get cleveland to pony up a 1st in addition to schroder/strus, but it sounds like we're not even willing to do a first swap.

i also agree with the implication that kuminga's agent is confused by us being like "you're gonna be great here...as long as it's for the minimum".

 

Kessler metrics from the year prior look really good including perimeter isolation defense. I looked AD in the bubble season as comparison (my god was he awesome on defense) he did things like screen navigation adn off ball chaser like a good defensive wing lol. overall kessler looks legit to me on D.

Something doesn't feel right still thought despite this statement: I don't know this team building seems off to me though and here I'm in agreement. there is on evidence that kessler is a big minutes eater at the center spot: if anything he seems to be the opposite? the injury risk is there. throw in the lack of perimeter defense - i mean grimes is supposed to the be stopper now? you're putting kessler into a spot where the opposing team is going to try to play him off the floor either making him run or get fouls. Once that is done the overall team impact of his defense is going be neglible: so I could definitely see a scenario where Kessler is good but his impact isn't if that makes any sense

 

Some combination of the above works - we just need defensive talent right now on the roster. Williams and some form of Brown or Thybulle at least balances the roster out a bit.

Maybe Cameron pops and Manon and give some rotational mins. It isn't ideal, but get these players some positive mins and see if you can cobble together a deal for an impact wing at the deadline.

 

That was directed at the member who implied that criticizing the roster construction means you hate the team. That’s nonsense, and that’s what I responded to.

 

He's not a scrub..he's just a stiff IMO. He's huge..he rebounds well..he will hold his ground head up in the paint...but he's limited on offense, to dunks and put backs, and when he rotates, it's going to leave huge openings behind him, we don't have people to compensate for that. I watched a lot of his games a few years ago. I really thought that he was the perfect compliment to AD..even more than Myles Turner. I just don't see him in the AD role. Yes he's more stout than Ayton in the paint, but Ayton moved better laterally, he was better than people gave him credit for, on getting out to the wings and challenging shots.

 

It’s right above your post. 21.5m, Vando’s 12.4 + 9.1m extra since we’re below the first Apron.

 

I’m not very excited about Kuminga, but beggars can’t be choosers.
I would much rather have PJ as well based off of his former success alongside Luka.
Kuminga is just a one year stop gap rental. I don’t like having to give up any draft capital for that.

 

i'm thoroughly confused as to what people want, tbh. there aren't rebounder/shotblockers who can also chase guards. there was one--AD, five years ago. kessler's probably as quick as AD laterally at this point.

can some matchups force him off the floor like gobert/hartenstein? YES! on some occasions this can/will happen. on many other occasions, teams will have a very hard time doing things in the paint on offense and will have to be extra vigilant about the roll man and defensive boards.

there's a reason that gobert and hartenstein make big money, though.

i also don't get why people were jazzed then bummed about mark williams (i was, too) but are poo-poo-ing this. williams was the fallback to the initial pursuit of kessler! i liked it because we gave up fewer assets than we would have had to for kessler, but later, we just gave up them up and got the initial target.

for all the anxiety of "getting played off the floor" i didn't see anyone advocating we go full dantoni--which is basically the only way your center can't be played off the floor.

again, i just wish people would have pre-registered these opinions instead of waiting to see who we got, then b****ing. had we gotten claxton, it would have been "oh, this is the big fish? a sf-sized "center" who has no offensive skill"? way to go, rob, nailed it again!"

 

What other people expect is on them. I voiced my take on what I think will be issues here.

I don't know about him being as quick as AD laterally today at all. I watched enough of him to form my opinion. Ball don't lie..we shall see what happens.

 

Rob actually gets flowers from me for targeting a hard to get, young, RFA, big who Luka wanted.
Do I like that very thing he does? Nope, but this was a big signing that we desperately needed to make Luka happy and also excite those of us who miss having someone down low who can alter shots and make up for other’s mistakes.

 

I actually posted a few times a month or two ago that people were probably setting themselves up to be disappointed with this offseason. Most of us were looking at it through championship expectations, but the free-agent class was weak and the RFAs were going to be extremely hard to get.

That said, my expectation wasn’t some huge splash. I thought the realistic path was to retain at least some of the guys who actually held up in the playoffs, add a useful player with the MLE, and then try to turn the remaining assets into another starter-level guy via trade.

That felt reasonable to me. This feels worse than that, which is why I’m more disappointed than I expected to be.

Before the offseason, I thought we were a couple of pieces away from being a real contender, assuming health. Can we honestly say that right now?

Also my biggest issue with Rob's moves in the offseason are the contracts handed out, and the lack of a reset button. In a job like this, flexibility matters. If Grimes and Mamu end up disappointing, I don’t really see the clean path out of those contracts. Is some other team going to take on 3 year deals for 2nds? I dont think so.

Like someone else said last week, this feels like the kind of decision a GM makes when he probably doesn’t expect to be around in a few years to clean up the mess.

 

Kessler was the best center available and we got him on a good contract.

The other option was Duren who I don’t think was ever serious about us. I do prefer Kessler to him.


Also we know the team is perfectly willing to cancel a trade if anything pops up that they don’t like on the medical charts. We feel good about his health to give up the draft capital we used in the trade.

I’m not sure who we could’ve brought in on his contract that would be better.

 

I'd actually be pretty happy with Zaire as a backup wing. I think he can continue to refine himself defensively. It's a shame he isn't a standout rebounder otherwise it would be a no brainer.

 

The Kessler trade is the least worrying move of the offseason to me, unless the guy's body is shot.

Even if it's not working out, I think it's much easier for us to trade Kessler due to his age and the rarity of his skillset, than Austin, if for example, he has another poor showing in the playoffs, and we need to trade him.