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Walker Kessler played just five games before his 2025-26 season was cut short. On Nov. 6 he underwent surgery on his left shoulder and since then he’s been working toward getting to a point where he could travel with the Utah Jazz once again.
That point came this week. Kessler joined the Jazz on their four-game road trip that started in Los Angeles and was overjoyed to be able to travel with the team again.
He’s taken up some new hobbies while being physically restricted during rehab, like playing online chess (he said he’s not very good), and he’s been working through Stephen King’s “The Stand” as well as “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius. But being with the team has completely changed his disposition.
“I told Walker today that I missed yelling at him,” Jazz coach Will Hardy said with a laugh. “He’s a big part of our program. He has relationships, obviously, with all of his teammates, a lot of the coaches. It’s nice to have him back.”
Kessler had been able to have loved ones and friends in Utah at times over the last couple of months, and he’d been at the Jazz practice facility most days and the Delta Center on game nights, but that doesn’t mean that the rehab process hasn’t been difficult.
“Rehab is very isolating,” Hardy said. “He’s been in the team film sessions, but you’re not on the court with the guys. You’re not really in the weight room with the guys in the same way. The treatment is different, the workouts are different. It can be really isolating.
“Also you’re not playing in the game, and so you don’t feel it the same way that your teammates do. Similar to Taylor (Hendricks) last year, getting Walker on the road with us is really important.”
Kessler said that he’s thankful that his injury was an upper-body injury so it hasn’t limited his ability to get around and that it was to his non-dominant arm, meaning that he’s got by with daily activities without struggling too much. But the physical part of rehabbing is often not the hardest part.
But he’s tried to focus on small victories. Last week he was able to take the sling off his arm, which was a sign of progress in his recovery. Getting back on the road with the team is another victory in the recovery process.
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