Walker Kessler's NBA goal: 'Bringing it every night'

Utah Jazz center Walker Kessler has a goal for his second NBA season: “To stay in that mindset that I’m bringing it every night.”

During the 2022-23 campaign, the former Auburn standout led the NBA’s rookies with 20 games with at least 10 points and 10 rebounds, and his .720 shooting percentage was the second-best in NBA history for a player with at least 400 shots in a season.

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Kessler was a member of the NBA All-Rookie team and finished third in the voting for the KIA NBA Rookie of the Year Award for the 2022-23 season.

But Kessler played a reserve role for the first half of his first season.

As a rookie, Kessler averaged 9.2 points, 8.4 rebounds and 2.3 blocks while playing in 74 games, with 40 starts. Kessler started the final 34 games that he played and averaged 11.9 points, 10.5 rebounds, 1.3 assists and 2.9 blocks in that span. Kessler missed the final four games of Utah’s season after sustaining a concussion.

Kessler said his emphasis will be “really hitting the ground running this year because I didn’t start playing until toward the second half of the year, so learning how to play a consistent game and show up every night for every game that I play, I think that will be a big learning point for me.”

Kessler thinks he got a head start on that goal by playing for the U.S. team in the FIBA World Cup this summer.

“Everyone always says that playing FIBA in general gives you confidence going into the year,” Kessler said. “I think for me personally I can definitely see where I get confidence from that.”

At the 2023 FIBA World Cup in the Philippines, the United States lost to Germany 113-111 in the semifinals, then fell to Canada 127-118 in overtime in the third-place game.

“First off, what an honor to go play for your country, especially growing up as a kid and watching the Olympics,” Kessler said. “I never watched the World Cup as much, but just the idea of playing for your country, it was spectacular. It was like a dream. I’ve never gotten to travel outside North America, so that was a first for me. That was awesome as well. …

“Learned a lot about myself and the game. It obviously didn’t pan out the way we hoped for. But it was a great experience and really looking forward to experiencing that again in the future.”

The Jazz tips off the 2023-24 season against the Sacramento Kings on Oct. 25. Before that, Utah will play a five-game preseason schedule, starting at 8 p.m. CDT Sunday against the Los Angeles Clippers. The Jazz also plays the Clippers on Tuesday, the Portland Trail Blazers on Saturday, the New Zealand Breakers on Oct. 16 and the Kings on Oct. 19 in preseason games.

Kessler said he hoped to meet his goal for the season by “staying mentally ready and taking care of your body and understanding that there’s a mentality going into the game that you have to have and you have to truly believe it. You can’t just fake it till you make it. You really have to have the sense of, ‘OK, this is what I do I every night: I’m going to play hard, I’m going to play to win.’”

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.