Walker Kessler Discussion: Rim Protector And Lob Threat

Walker is definitely a great signing and outside of injury concern, I genuinely don't get the concern about him. Best option available at center.

 

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Is there any way that you can summarize these? Some of them are really long

Thank you

 

Walker Kessler is pretty good already, he could also get better.

He defends hard. Blocks lots of shots. Rebounds really well. Can be a league leading offensive rebounder. He showed flashes of a 3 pt shot last year - if he develops this, it totally changes his career trajectory.

He hasn't anchored a top defence yet even though he is a top 3 rim protector, but the Jazz weren't trying to win during his time there. He hasn't been injured as much as it looks because the Jazz were tanking and kept him out quite a bit. It seems last year's operation wasn't necessary but just something they decided to do because the Jazz were tanking.

That's pretty much the gist of it all.

 

Thank you for the input

 

Why Kessler Is the Perfect Fit Next to Luka | Guest Iztok Franko

 

Walker Kessler Scouting Report: Breaking Down His Film & Lakers Fit

 

Franko knows his stuff, so it’s good to hear him praise Kessler’s iq and motor. I agree that lively was the ideal center for Luka, but he may not exist anymore, and nobody else is like that. Kessler is probably the next best thing.

 

Hmm, while I think Lively is a better fit for Luka, Kessler is the better structural roster fit for the Lakers. We needed a physical rim protector and elite rebounder desperately to establish our defensive identity.

 

Part of it is that I think pre-injury lively was on his way to being the best center in the league that wasn’t the big Serb.

 

I don't think he has that kind of upside. Lively's ceiling is an elite role player, ie Tyson Chandler. Among young centers, he's clearly a tier below Wemby and Chet. His value is mostly his athleticism and versatility on defense, but I'd still probably take Mobley over him as well.

As a player archetype, I feel Kessler has a better chance of climbing to star status over Lively.

 

Yeah I'm with tada on this one

 

IMO Kessler is going to be a star this season and really come into his own as a Laker. The only thing he has lacked is a team around him. With Luka and AR he will get easy buckets JJ seems confident in his 3ball. We already know how good he is defensively and on the boards. Three all-stars and somewhere between 58-60 wins on our way to a championship.

 

I don't see star with Kessler, he also doesn't need to be. If he can give us top rim protection and finish the many opportunities our play makers will make for him, he'll be a high end role player in the same vein an OG Anunonby is. That's way more than enough.

 

disagree. he's larger and quicker than chandler ever was, and was already making heady plays out of the short roll as a rookie. my dad and i talked about this at the time, but i actually thought he was going to be better than chet. chet's only advantage on him is iso-scoring/ballhandling, neither of which you want chet doing very much, anyway. lively was a better interior defender who could switch out onto perimeter players just as well as chet. again, bigger and stronger, too. he couldn't be played off the floor by pulling him away from the hoop defensively, which is true of very few centers right now.

he just couldn't stay on the floor and honestly, it looks like he probably won't ever. or if he does, it will be like chandler and marcus camby, who only stayed on the floor after they lost some of the freakish athleticism that put their ceiling so high.

anyway, all that's to say that while kessler isn't like that version of lively, he's probably the best we can do. despite appearances, i think he's actually both a better defender and a better lob threat than duren. he's appropriately priced as a 3rd/4th most valuable guy on the roster, and given his age and our need, the draft capital invested makes sense to me.



our issue is that to be a top-flight contender like SA/okc, we need one more player of that caliber, and we don't really have a route there at the moment. but that still doesn't change my mind about spending for kessler. bird in the hand.

 

I don’t know if anyone realized it before, but it only now occurred to me that Kessler played with AR on the national team.