All-Star Weekend: Walker Kessler’s Rising Stars moment goes by in a flash

Walker Kessler’s Rising Stars experience Friday night at Vivint Arena lasted just a few minutes, but even so, he found himself getting emotional talking about being a part of the festivities.

“To be picked and to hear your name called and then the Salt Lake City crowd, to hear them cheer — I couldn’t have asked for a better fan base,” Kessler said. “I’m super, super thankful this year. It’s funny how stuff works like that. … I’m getting a little choked up thinking about it.”

Kessler was the last of the Rising Stars to be introduced, but in front of his home crowd, the ovation he received was bigger than any other player.

Once the game started though, everything went by so fast. The mini-tournament included two games that were played to a target score of 40 and a final game to determine the winning squad that was played to a target score of 25.

Kessler’s team, coached by Deron Williams, was ousted in the first round, 40-25. Kessler played just under seven minutes and finished with two points, two blocks, a rebound, an assist, a foul, a missed 3-pointer and a goaltending call against him.

“Who calls a goaltending in an All-Star game?!” Williams exclaimed after the fact, wishing that the Rising Stars game had included the NBA’s normal coach’s challenge rule.

“We should have challenged that. That would have been awesome if they would have reversed the call. This city would have went crazy.”

Kessler joked that he wasn’t getting plays called for him by Williams and that the game only lasted for five minutes.

He lamented missing his lone 3-pointer and said that if it had gone in, he would have sent a clip to Jazz head coach Will Hardy right away, but is now hoping that the video is somehow scrubbed from the internet because Hardy is more likely to send it to Kessler to rib him.

But it’s not just the Rising Stars tournament that Kessler was looking forward to. He’ll be a part of All-Star Saturday night when he joins with Jordan Clarkson and Collin Sexton on Team Utah competing in the Skills Challenge.

“Hopefully it’s better than that,” Kessler said with a laugh, referring to his short-lived Rising Stars performance.

“I think we’ve got a real shot at winning it. Then again I said that about this game, but no, Collin and J.C. are going to want to compete, so it’ll be fun. It’s going to be a fun time.”

Team Pau Gasol beat Team Deron in the opening game Friday. Team Joakim Noah beat Team Jason Terry, which was made up of G League standouts.

In the final game, Team Pau beat Team Joakim on a Jose Alvarado game-winning 3-pointer. Alvarado was voted MVP of the Rising Stars tournament and said that Donovan Mitchell promised to buy him dinner if he made the final shot.

“D. Mitch owes me dinner,” he said.