Austin Ainge: We were planning on keeping Walker Kessler

Here’s Utah Jazz president of basketball operations Austin Ainge talking about the Walker Kessler deal from this past summer (acquired two unprotected first-round picks in 2031 and 2033/two first-round pick swaps for 2028 and 2030 from the Los Angeles Lakers).

(via Utah Jazz):

On what went into the deal and how it came about: “It’s something that we’d been talking off and on for a year about, and we really valued Walker. Walker’s a good player and we were planning on keeping him, but that offer got high enough that we thought it was the right move to make for the Jazz for building a championship team.”

Discusses draft assets/financial flexibility from the trade: “Those are extremely valuable assets, and we’ll see when and how we can use those in the future. You can’t predict that, but we think that we have really good players on the roster now and we’re really excited to see this team play. And then we do have both the financial flexibility and the assets to add wherever we find we need, right? I think that we’re excited to see it take a big step forward this year and see where that takes us, and see what other areas need to be shored up.”