DENIED - Utah Jazz will NOT extend Walker Kessler | Can Kessler BECOME top 10 Center in the NBA?

Locked On Jazz - Daily Podcast On The Utah Jazz

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4.7 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David Locke, radio voice of the Utah Jazz and Jazz NBA Insider, breaks down the Utah Jazz’s decision to pass on a rookie extension for Walker Kessler—framing it as a calculated team-building move rather than an indictment of Kessler’s value or future with the franchise. Locke lays out the salary cap ramifications, emphasizes the flexibility restricted free agency affords the Jazz, and ponders whether this signals a broader organizational approach to center spending after moving on from Rudy Gobert. The episode sparks a debate around Kessler’s ceiling, with Ben Anderson predicting he could rise into the NBA’s top five centers—a claim Locke challenges by ranking the contemporary center landscape and considering what a true leap for Kessler would mean.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Utah Jazz say no go to an extension.
0:04.2	But did they really say no go to Walker Kessler?
0:07.0	It's next on Locked on Jazz.
0:10.2	Butam, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum,
0:12.9	you are Locked on Jazz, your daily podcast on the Utah Jazz.
0:23.3	Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day.
0:29.4	How are you? I'm David Locke, Radio Voice to the Utah Jazz, Jazz MBA Insider, and this is Locked on Jazz.
0:37.1	It's your daily podcast on the Utah Jazz, giving you
0:39.8	insight, expertise, geeky numbers and hopefully making it way better to be a jazz fan each and every
0:46.2	day. Thank you so much for making Locked on Jazz your first list of the day. We are free and
0:52.7	available on all podcasting apps. And thank you for making
0:56.7	locked on the number one sports podcast network. You're awesome. Every dayers, you made it. You're
1:03.5	incredible. I appreciate you. Thank you. Ben Anderson, who is fabulous yesterday. We'll rejoin us on
1:09.1	today's show. Tomorrow we will do a Friday, Ask L.OJ edition. You guys have been killing those. So we'll keep that going. Monday. We'll get ready for Media Day with what is the success for every player on the team this year. And then Tuesday and Wednesday hoping to have Lauren Green on the show as our guest as we start to get ready. And then by the way, like then we have a game pretty much like a week from Wednesday. Woo-hoo! Fired up for this. Get ready to call games again.
1:32.9	A big story of the day. No extension for Walker Kessler. The jazz saying no to Walker.
1:39.3	It's really simple math. It's not an indictment of who Walker is as a player. Here's the math.
1:47.0	Walker's cap hold. I'm using round numbers to make it easy. And what cap hold means is the amount of
1:52.7	money that he counts against your salary cap for next season is 15 million.
2:06.8	The number for the jazz to sign Walker to an extension would have been to have his number,
2:10.3	yearly number, be somewhere near 15 million.
2:13.6	I'm going to guess his camp was asking for 30.
2:15.6	I'm guessing the jazz were probably willing to do 20.
	...

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