Kemba Walker Is Really Having An Insane Comeback Story

Kemba Walker is having a crazy NBA comeback. ✅ Sign up to Sorare NBA and get 20 FREE Common NBA cards on me: https://sorare.pxf.io/ALLNBA

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Kemba Walker was a 4 time All-Star, averaged over 20 points for 5 seasons, but was benched 2 months into last season. He hadn’t played an NBA game for 297 days despite being healthy, no team wanted him, and it seemed like everyone but the Mavericks gave him a shot. And now in his 3rd game back, Kemba dropped 32 points, 7 assists, and 5 rebounds.

Kemba was electric, crossing people over, but without any help, defenses were able to focus on him and he struggled with efficiency. Without a great outside shot he had slow start to his career. In his first 4 seasons he averaged 16.3 points 5.4 assists 3.7 rebounds on 39.5% FG% and 31.8% from 3FG%. But he changed his jump shot in 2015 and became the greatest Hornet of all time, not even an exagerration.

He’s the franchise scoring leader, passing Stephs dad (dell curry), he’s also 2nd in assists and 3rd in steals. He started the all star game in Charlotte, 1 of his 3 selections while on the Hornets. He was even ALL-NBA in 2019, one of the best guards in the NBA. He led the team to 2 playoff appearances and had some memorable individual moments. I

Kemba took less to go to Boston to compete for a championship, a team that wanted to replace Kyrie.

Kemba was hoping for that type of redemption in NY. The Knicks signed Kemba to 2 years / $18 million.

The Knicks were excited to finally have a point guard. When they made the playoffs in 2020-2021, it was a huge milestone albeit still getting bounced out the first round by a balding man. But in order to maintain that consistency and elevate their game, they realized that they needed somebody to control and run the offense, a true Point Guard and not just a Julius Randle offense. But Kemba never found his groove.

In his first 18 games, Kemba had career low numbers and Thib said nah, this aint it and just gave up. He benched him, took him out of the rotation saying “I just don’t like the way we’ve been trending, the inconsistency of our team,”. “We’re going to try and make a change. I want to get bigger, I want our defense to be more intact. But even after benching Kemba, the Knicks were still ass. They had a lower winning percentage without him than with.

After 10 inactive games, Thibs was forced to play him because Derrick Rose, Quickley, Grimes, Toppin, RJ, Knox and McBride all missed with injury or covid.

How did Kemba respond? Dropping 29 points in 37 minutes vs his former team the Celtics. He also went off on Coach Thibs after the game for his lack of playing time saying “I hate it. I want to play… that’s up to these guys. I know I should be playing.”

Former three-time Sixth Man of the year Jamal Crawford agreed. He played one season under thibs (Timberwolves in 2017-18) and took to Twitter to defend Kemba saying

“And some of y’all said “ defensive net rating” and all this other mumbo jumbo trying to justify Kemba not playing. Stop letting these coaches/teams create the narrative a player is done because THEY don’t like them,

And it wasn’t just Jamal, other players came to Kemba’s defense including Kenny Smith who directed at Thibodeau saying “The Guy’s A Great Offensive Player And You Just Don’t Know How To Use Him

People were in disbelief. Not at the fact that Kemba wasn’t starting, but at the fact that

Thibs could have tried other options besides straight DNPs.

What is interesting is that several teams were interested in Kemba in February when they thought the Knicks would buy him out, but Kemba wanted to get traded instead.

And when he eventually got traded to the Pistons in June, there was suddenly no interest in Kemba after a buyout. What happened in those 4-5 months?

The Mavericks first got Kemba up to speed, the GM said that his knee was not good at all and so we’ll have to see how he plays. Wow, even the GM harsh…And in his first two games, he got some minutes and played a pretty average game. 8 points in 19 minutes, 6 in 13, but with the Mavericks without Luka and Spencer, they gave him a start against a good Cavs team and well…

Kemba did it. He ran the offense, pick and roll, mid range jumpers, bursts to the rim. The Cavs weren’t able to contain him and the Mavs were able to push the Cavs. Walker ties the game heading to go to overtime where they lost by 1 point. But it proved that Kemba was still there. The next game, Kemba had 14 coming off the bench on less efficiency and was picked on defensively, but he got to the line 7 times in 23 minutes. He was always at least deserving of a roster spot.