LOS ANGELES (AP) – Walker Kessler is being traded by the Utah Jazz to the Los Angeles Lakers, who will have the center under contract for the next four seasons and for a total of about $130 million, a person with knowledge of the agreement said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The Jazz are getting two first-round draft picks and two first-round pick swaps out of the deal, according to the person who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the move is a sign-and-trade and has yet to receive the needed league approvals.<\/p>\n
The Athletic and ESPN were among those to first report the agreement.<\/p>\n
Acquiring Kessler is the first big move for the Lakers in their post-LeBron James era, after the NBA\u2019s all-time leading scorer said Tuesday that he was leaving the team and would spend this coming season elsewhere. And it solves a need at center for the Lakers, plus gives the team a young big to pair with star guards Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves.<\/p>\n
Kessler \u2014 who turns 25 later this month \u2014 was limited to five games this past season after having surgery to repair a labrum tear in his left shoulder in November. He and the Jazz discussed an extension last summer but never came to terms.<\/p>\n
Kessler was averaging 14.4 points, 10.8 rebounds and 1.8 blocks on 70% shooting this past season before getting hurt. In his first three seasons, he averaged 9.4 points on 68% shooting.<\/p>\n
He played for the U.S. at the 2023 FIBA World Cup in the Philippines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Walker Kessler is being traded by the Utah Jazz to the Los Angeles Lakers, who will have the center under contract for the next four seasons and for a total of about $130 million, a person with knowledge of the agreement said Wednesday. The Jazz are getting two first-round draft picks … Continue reading Walker Kessler is going from the Jazz to the Lakers, will get a 4-year deal, AP source says<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1452],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1519651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2026-07-03 12:27:32","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[0],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1519651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1519652,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519651\/revisions\/1519652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1519651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1519651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1519651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}