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SALT LAKE CITY — Walker Kessler was in Las Vegas sitting courtside as the Utah Jazz won their first Summer League game.
But that's the closest the 2022 first-round draft pick, who the Jazz acquired in the Rudy Gobert trade, will get to playing in Summer League.
The Jazz announced they signed Kessler to a contract on Saturday afternoon, but the team is keeping the 2022 SEC Defensive Player of the Year out of Summer League games due to a minor toe injury sustained during pre-draft workouts.
Is the injury anything to worry about? Not likely. Utah said it had cleared Kessler to participate in all on-court activities, but the team still opted to hold him out of summer festivities in Vegas.
So while Kessler will have to wait to make his unofficial Jazz debut, the Jazz had two other players suit up for the first time in their 72-66 win over the Atlanta Hawks.
Leandro Bolmaro and Johnny Juzang both made their Jazz debut on Saturday.
So what were the first impressions?
Bolmaro, a second-year wing the Jazz acquired as part of the Gobert trade, had 5 points on 2-of-13 shooting and added five assists. He looked like a player still finding his way — which, considering he practiced for the first time with the team on Saturday morning, isn't too surprising — but also a player that comes with plenty of intrigue.
"He's big, he can play multiple positions, can handle the ball," Utah general manager Justin Zanik said of Bolmaro.
Balmaro is 6-foot-6, showed an effective drive game and has some flashy passing skills. He's a guy that, if things develop, could really be a fun player. He also showed some toughness defending and battled hard for boards. All good things.
The bad?
Well, he can't shoot. The 2-for-13 performance wasn't really an outlier. He shot just 33% from the field in his rookie season in Minnesota and 27% from 3-point range. It's hard to survive in the league with those types of numbers. Can the Jazz develop his shot? If the answer is yes, he could be a valuable player.
"We're excited to kind of evaluate him and get him on a developmental path," Zanik said.
Juzang, meanwhile, started on Saturday but was mostly a non-factor (3 points on six shots and four rebounds). But just the fact that he was playing was a good sign for Juzang.
The former UCLA standout was in a car accident shortly after arriving in Utah. He ended up missing all three of Utah's games during the Salt Lake City Summer League with concussion symptoms.
Juzang signed a two-way contract with the Jazz following the 2022 NBA draft.
Other notes:
- Jared Butler continued his progress. After a slow start to the Summer League season, Butler is looking more and more comfortable running the show for the Jazz. Butler had 15 points on 6 of 11 shooting and added seven assists in his most efficient game of the summer. Butler had success with the pick-and-roll game, specifically with finding lobs for Jazz bigs Bruno Caboclo and Kofi Cockburn. We'll choose to look past the careless turnovers at the end for now.
- Speaking of Caboclo, he continued to impress in Vegas after two strong showings at the Salt Lake City Summer League. Caboclo had 11 points on 5-for-5 shooting and eight rebounds in the win. According to the Summer League roster guide, Caboclo is the most experienced player in Las Vegas; that means he should be doing exactly what he did on Saturday.
