According to Marc Stein, the New York Knicks and the Los Angeles Lakers tried hard for Walker Kessler at the trade deadline.

From Marc Stein’s substack:

League sources say that the Knicks were right there with the Lakers in their determination before the trade deadline to try to convince Utah to engage in meaningful Walker Kessler trade talks. No dice, though. The Jazz made it clear they wanted no part of entertaining Kessler pitches in-season.

It’s always interesting to hear the breakdown of the talks that happened for trades that didn’t happen. In this case, it sounds like it was a trade that would never happen, at the trade deadline, at least. When you consider what happened with Luka Doncic going to the Lakers, it likely made trading Walker Kessler to them even less likely. With Utah owning the Lakers’ 2027 first, making the Lakers a better team isn’t something Utah likely wants to make happen. But hearing about the Knicks’ continuing interest makes you wonder what they are offering. It can’t be a lot, considering everything they gave to Brooklyn for Mikal Bridges.

The thing from that quote that stands out to me is “in-season.” Is the main reason Utah didn’t trade Kessler because it was an in-season trade? Would it be possible this offseason? We shall if anything comes but it’s clear that Kessler will have a lot of interested parties.