The Los Angeles Lakers made their offseason splash by signing Deandre Ayton. While that’s a whole other subject by itself, this does have something to do with the Utah Jazz as it means one thing for them: there will be no more Walker Kessler-to-the-Lakers rumors.
For what seems like an eternity now (it’s only been a year give or take), Kessler’s name has popped up as a Lakers target. It’s come up again in recent weeks, and in fact, Lakers insider Jovan Buha mentioned Kessler’s name again in his live stream before the team signed Ayton.
“I’ve just heard nothing, but they want two picks plus a young player for Walker Kessler,” Buha said. “So the Lakers cannot do that trade. They can give one pick, and one young player and a swap. You could throw in a couple swaps. I probably would try to hold off on the later swaps, but I would maybe throw in three swaps, like just or and take away the protections on the top-four pick in 2027, but I just don’t know if that’s going to be enough for Utah.”
Well, even though this was never serious, Kessler’s name likely won’t appear in Lakers trade rumors. At this point, these rumors were more annoying than anything else because people came to the wrong conclusion about it.