Utah
Three Paths Utah Jazz Can Take After Walker Kessler’s Injury
The Utah Jazz have had an encouraging start to the season, largely thanks to the contributions from Lauri Markkanen, Keyonte George, and fourth-year big man Walker Kessler.
Unfortunately, news broke on Wednesday that Kessler will undergo season-ending surgery to address a torn labrum in his shoulder. The news is a devastating blow to a Jazz team that is looking to progress towards its long-term goals this year after finishing with the worst record in the league last season.
Without Kessler, the Jazz are now extremely thin at the center position, with just veteran big man Jusuf Nurkic a natural at the position.
With that in mind, let’s discuss some options for where the team can go from here.
Kessler has already missed several preseason and early-regular-season games, and in his absence, the team has leaned on Nurkic, who has started over 400 games in his 12-year NBA career. Additionally, the team has turned to Kevin Love, the former NBA champion, to soak up minutes as an undersized center.
Neither offers the rim protection nor the lob threat that was so valuable to making the team function. In fact, both are poor defenders at this point in their careers. Along with that, neither project to be with the team long term, which makes investing big minutes for either less than ideal.
The Jazz have a couple of young options in Kyle Filipowski and Taylor Hendricks, but they both have limitations. Filipowski can execute offensively at a high level while playing the five, but the team bleeds points with his lack of rim protection.
Theoretically, Hendricks could provide more rim protection, but he’s struggled defensively since returning from the devastating ankle injury that all but eliminated his sophomore season. Getting him minutes at center throughout the year could be important, but the Jazz haven’t put him there much.
While less than ideal, the Kessler injury could be beneficial in one way: the team will lose more games and be set up better in the lottery standings, especially if they don’t make a move to bolster their center group.
There are practically no quality NBA centers available on the free agent market. However, the Jazz could look at a few different options for finding a more traditional center.
The most popular, and obvious, would be going down to the G-League and signing former 6th overall pick Mo Bamba, who’s playing for the Salt Lake City Stars and spent training camp with the team.
While he never lived up to the billing of a high lottery pick, Bamba can protect the rim better than any option the team currently has. He can also stretch the floor a bit and has more vertical pop than Nurkic or Love.
The biggest problem here is that the Jazz would have to open up a roster spot to sign Bamba and don’t have any clear candidates to waive.
The last, and least likely, at least in the short term, option is to go out and trade for a quality center.
Now, I doubt they would (or should) trade draft picks or premium assets for a center, given where they’re at in their rebuild. Finding someone who can help the team play how they wanted to with Kessler could be beneficial for the rest of the roster.
For example, Goga Bitadze, Orlando’s backup center, is part of a frontcourt-heavy Magic team and is signed to a team-friendly deal through 2027. He could be a short-term solution at center who wouldn’t impact winning at a level where you’d have to be concerned about impacting your draft pick, and could be a valuable backup going forward. There’s no sense that he’s available for trade at this point, though.
Regardless of what direction the team takes, Kessler’s injury is a massive gut punch. Hopefully, he’s back healthy and clicking on all cylinders next season.
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Jon Anderson will be charged with moving the Orem school forward following the death of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk on campus last year.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Incoming UVU President Jon Anderson poses for a photo with his family after an event announcing his selection at Utah Valley University in Orem on Friday, July 17, 2026.
BEAVER COUNTY, Utah — A massive community effort is underway as volunteers and Beaver County crews distribute thousands of sandbags to protect homes from the potential path of floodwaters.
After the Cottonwood Fires, residents have been waiting for weeks for relief to come in the form of rain, though officials now warn it may come all at once with an increased risk of flooding and debris flow.
Emergency Service Director Les Whitney believes that the fire has left plenty of debris to bring trouble for residents.
“We got a lot of water. We’re bringing debris with it, so tree branches, tree limbs, logs, lots of different size firewood, and that’s all in the creeks. We’re worried about that plugging up our bridges and stuff, so we have heavy equipment and excavators located in strategic places so that we can keep those bridges open,” said Whitney.
An estimated 140 homes and condominiums were spared from the flames, but remain in the paths of floodwaters.
Residents can also pick up sandbags at the Beaver County Sheriff’s Office or at the Beaver County Rodeo Fairgrounds.
EAGLE MOUNTAIN — An Eagle Mountain man currently on pretrial release in 4th District Court who is accused of abusing his dog has been arrested again for allegedly punching the same animal.
Keith Reaves Davis, 43, was booked into the Utah County Jail on Wednesday for investigation of aggravated cruelty to an animal.
Utah County sheriff’s deputies were called Wednesday afternoon to a grocery store on a report that a man was beating his dog after it had gotten off its leash and was stopped by a bystander, according to a police booking affidavit.
“I reviewed security camera footage from the grocery store, and an individual matching the description of the suspect was seen holding the dog in the air by one paw and repeatedly striking the dog on the right hind leg area. I observed the male strike the dog several times before dropping the dog from approximately 1-2 feet. The strikes appeared to be as hard as the male could hit,” the arresting deputy wrote in the affidavit. “The dog did not cry out or whimper as if the dog was accustomed to the abuse.”
When questioned, Davis “admitted to striking the dog because it was not behaving,” the affidavit states.
An animal control officer who responded to the scene to take custody of the dog noted it was the same dog he had taken from Davis exactly three months earlier during another animal abuse investigation.
In that case, Davis was charged in 4th District Court with aggravated cruelty to an animal, a class A misdemeanor; and public intoxication, a class C misdemeanor, after deputies received a tip from a neighbor that a dog was being abused at Davis’ home, according to charging documents. When questioned, Davis “acknowledged hitting his dog as punishment,” the charges state.
Deputies also reviewed videos that the neighbor had filmed. The neighbor told investigators “there was blood from the dog on the ground of the garage and (the neighbor) can hear the dog screaming as if it’s being hurt. Deputies got the videos from the (neighbor) and you can hear very loudly the dog screaming and crying with a lot of loud banging noises. In one of the videos, you can hear the dog sounding like it is being choked by a collar and is grasping for air,” a police booking affidavit states.
Davis’ next court hearing in the April case is scheduled for July 28.
In their latest booking report, sheriff’s deputies note that they “believe further harm will be inflicted on this dog if it is released back to the male a second time,” and have recommended the dog not be returned to Davis.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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