Walker Kessler’s season-ending shoulder surgery is undoubtedly a setback for the Utah Jazz, as evidenced by the fact that they have lost all but one game since losing him on Halloween. The one upside to his injury, however, is that it justifies a universally hated move the Jazz made this offseason: trading for Jusuf Nurkic.
When it was announced that the Jazz had traded Collin Sexton for Nurkic this summer, there was a colossal response: “WHAT?!” While a Sexton trade felt like it would happen one way or another, getting only Nurkic and having to give up a second-rounder confused just about everyone because Sexton was seen as the better player and his best days were ahead of him.
That’s still true, but with the season so young, Kessler’s injury inadvertently makes the Nurkic trade look brilliant because it gives the Jazz a clean five to start for the team. In other words, they need him now. As good as Sexton is, he wasn’t someone Utah needed anymore.
Nurkic isn’t the player he once was, but if he’s proven anything, it’s that he can still play. In a contract year, he has shown that he can still get on the boards (8.9 rebounds per game) and pass the ball (three assists per game) in almost 22 minutes per game.
Those are pretty solid numbers overall for a starting center. Don’t look at his shooting efficiency…
The Jazz’s guard play has also helped mitigate Sexton’s absence
Trade Utah Sexton had little to do with what he could and couldn’t do on the floor and more to do with them wanting to see what they had in their young guards like Keyonte George, Walter Clayton Jr. and Isaiah Collier.
While Collier is only just back from injury, George looks like he has the makings of being the Jazz’s next All-Star guard and Clayton looks like he could develop into one of Utah’s biggest draft-day stealers. There’s no telling if they would have made such progress if Sexton had still been on the team.
Is it still an unequal deal? Of course it is. However, Nurkic suddenly became a lot more important to the Jazz after having one of the worst breaks they could have imagined. It’s not like he’s dominating, but Utah would be in a much worse position right now with the Kesslerless team if Nurkic wasn’t on the team.
Sexton is the better player, but right now the Jazz needed Nurkic more than him. Even if this isn’t exactly how they wanted to prove it.
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