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SALT LAKE CITY — Walker Kessler didn't need any time to ponder the question. Heck, he didn't even wait for it to be fully completed before he answered.
"Is it hard for you to brush things off?" a reporter asked.
"Yes, very," Kessler said, quickly jumping in.
The 22-year-old Jazz center was far from his best Thursday during Utah's 115-107 loss to the Charlotte Hornets. In 17 minutes, he scored 2 points on 1-of-4 shooting, grabbed two rebounds, and recorded one block. During his time on the court, the Jazz were outscored by 18 points.
It was mostly a night to forget. Kessler, though, has a hard time doing just that.
That's not new, either — not by a long shot. He remembers nudging walls with his elbow and getting moody after he even lost games of ping pong with his brother.
"I used to throw a tantrum whenever I lost anything. It ruined my day," he said with a laugh.
Hey, at least the tantrums are gone. The disappointment, though, still remains.
Kessler has lofty expectations for himself. He set a high bar with a stellar rookie season last year — a bar that he has struggled to clear in his sophomore campaign. His minutes have been volatile, and his role has seemingly been ever-changing.
"I think that I hold myself to a very high standard, but I also think it's a balance to where you can't let that expectation debilitate you and just make you not be able to do anything," Kessler said. "And I think as a young kid, I used to really struggle with that. And last night was definitely a tough night for me. I couldn't get anything going."
He admitted he let the circumstances around Thursday's game affect his play. After starting the previous four games, Kessler came off the bench against the Hornets. That, he said, was more of a challenge than he thinks it should have been.
"I am a human — that sounds weird — but I am human," he said. "So like naturally that's gonna affect me a little bit, but you try your best to not let it affect you, because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. You just have to control what you can control and perform the way that you're supposed to perform.
"And I think that last night, honestly, it got me a little bit; it shouldn't have, but it did, and there's nothing you can do now. It's past, move on, learn from it, and try to just control what you can control."
His move to the bench wasn't a reprimand of his play. The Jazz have struggled as a whole since they traded three rotation players at the deadline, and coach Will Hardy is still trying to find lineups and rotations that could lead to some positive results. On Thursday, he opted to see what rookie Taylor Hendricks could do with the starting group.
"Walker is a good player. He knows that I believe in him; he knows that we believe in him," Hardy said. "I would anticipate, as our season has indicated, that our lineups are going to continue to change. Walker's not banished to the bench forever."
Following Friday's practice, as Kessler was getting set to leave the court, he was stopped by Jazz executive Danny Ainge, and the two spoke for about 10 minutes.
The reason?
"I didn't play my best game, so he kinda was just checking in on me and seeing how I was doing," Kessler said about the conversation. "In this business, there are times when, just like in any occupation, where you're gonna have bad days, but you can't take a week off after that bad day. You've got to get back into it."
Sounds like he's learning to brush things off.
