2021-22 Knicks Season Preview: Kemba Walker
A free agent surprise that almost nobody saw coming, Kemba Walker represents perhaps the best point guard the Knicks have rostered since Walt “Clyde” Frazier. But he doesn’t come without concerns, namely, the injuries that forced Boston to pay to ship him off. Do the shortcomings even matter at his current price point, though?
“Starting at point guard for the New York Knicks…”
Many have tried to fill the void of franchise point guard since Walt “Clyde” Frazier’s heyday. A few provided hope, however brief, that they’d be “the one.” Michael Ray Richardson, Mark Jackson, our namesake, Rod Strickland, and Stephon Marbury are some who looked like they might be destined to do so before flaming out or departing under acrimonious circumstances, often both.
However, the graveyard of Knicks point guards is littered mostly with non-descript journeymen and young players who failed to develop as hoped, like Raymond Felton, Chris Duhon, Frank Ntilikina, Toney Douglas, Sergio Rodriguez, Elfrid Payton, Jose Calderon… the list goes on and on. Even the legendary ’90s Knicks, who still hold a place near and dear to the hearts of Knicks fans, never really got anywhere close to figuring it out despite the best efforts of Greg Anthony, Derek Harper, Charlie Ward, and Chris Childs.
For over 40 years the Knicks of New York, the city of park legend point guards, have desperately been in search of that ever-elusive floor general who could take the reins and lead the franchise back to glory. Derrick Rose’s re-introduction last season after his failed first run at Madison Square Garden gave us an honest-to-goodness glimpse of just what a dynamic point guard could provide for this team, but asking him to be a high-end starter at this stage of his career was not an option. Filling that void remained a high priority entering the offseason, and with free agents like Kyle Lowry, Chris Paul, and Mike Conley Jr. on the free agent market with the Knicks sitting on oodles of cap space to play with, surely they’d finally land one and put an end to our collective misery.
Except they didn’t land any of the “big three” point guards on the market. Lowry was quickly seduced by the power of the dark side in Miami, and Paul and Conley re-upped with Phoenix and Utah, respectively.
Yet again it seemed the Knicks would have to settle on a milquetoast stopgap as the shadow of Dennis Schroder loomed large. Not an ideal outcome. Understandable, but uninspired and disappointing.
Except there was Kemba Walker, the potential solution to a decades-long problem, appearing, suddenly, as the Knicks’ very own deus ex machina. After being traded from Boston to Oklahoma City in a salary-slashing maneuver, he was able to agree to a buyout, which allowed him to hit free agency and, ultimately, find his way back home to New York.
It’s easy to forget, with how often we discuss sports in terminology that wouldn’t feel out of place in a corporate boardroom setting, that there’s supposed to be a romanticism to it. And what could possibly be more romantic than the return of a New York legend and Bronx native to fill the forever void that’s plagued his hometown team?
It’s not all sunshine, though. The reason the Celtics were eager to unload his salary — a trade that cost them a first round pick — is that Kemba’s ongoing health issues with his knees made the financial cost for a non-contender unpalatable. Even after giving him scheduled rest days to manage him more carefully last season, Walker was injured in the playoffs and sat out the final three games of Boston’s first round loss to Brooklyn. Oklahoma City, the team that bought low on Chris Paul under similar circumstances, only to sell high on him a (healthy) year later, either chose to do Kemba a solid out of the kindness of their heart, or determined he was unlikely to have that type of bounce-back arc.
Quite frankly, though, these concerns are minor for the Knicks when he’s the sixth-highest paid player on the roster this season, and would be seventh next season as things currently stand. Even if Kemba is an injury-prone dud, the Knicks can move on with ease, or simply just eat the cost without it being an albatross weighing them down for years.
So what can we expect from Kemba this season?
What if he’s just able to provide the level of performance he did last season when he averaged 19.3 points per game on 42/36/89.9 splits and 55.9% true shooting? Considering he’d be stepping into minutes that went to Elfrid Payton last year, he of the 28.6% 3P% and 47.8% TS%, and the flattest, most hopeless jumper in living memory, that would still represent a massive upgrade.
There’s also the trickle-down impact on those he’s going to be sharing the court with to consider. A primary ball handler with the ability to pull up from distance off the dribble, early and often, will open up the court for these Knicks in ways they have never experienced, bar the 18 minutes per game of rookie Immanuel Quickley — the positive impact of which should be instructive. Quickley is still trying to fully grasp how to leverage his shooting prowess to open up other areas of the game for himself and to create for others, but Kemba, even now in his older, arthritic state, contorts and bends defenses with his elusiveness off the bounce that nobody on the roster can replicate, not even Julius Randle.
Teams will no longer have the luxury of being able to blatantly ignore Payton off the ball in order to crowd the paint on RJ Barrett and Randle’s forays to the rim. Even a dilapidated version of Kemba demands the defense honor him off the ball in a way that didn’t exist at all in the 63 starts and 1484 minutes of Elf last season
Mitchell Robinson’s vertical spacing, which has been muted due to the various pick-and-roll shortcomings of the primary ball handlers he’s shared the floor with to date, should also become more of a weapon. The Knicks will actually be able to make opponents pick their own poison rather than trying to avoid self-strangulation.
What about the defense, you say?
Well, what about it? Is Kemba a good defender? Not particularly. He’s a small guard and we’ve seen over the years how he gets hunted on that end, particularly in the playoffs. We’ve also seen that Kemba, in a good defensive scheme alongside stronger defenders, won’t sink you. He has played for four top-10 defenses over the course of his career in Charlotte and Boston.
If he were replacing an elite point-of-attack defender, the concern would be warranted. Alas, Payton’s garbage offensive production did not mean he was a high-level defender, as many would suggest. He was prone to dying on screens, getting blown by on the perimeter after foolishly pressuring a ball handler too high up the floor, and guilty of a general lack of awareness in sticking with his man, increasingly so as the season progressed.
If Kemba can be a more engaged defender, despite his physical shortcomings, not only will the drop off be minimal, it may simply reveal itself to be an illusory concern.
What really matters to the Knicks isn’t so much that Kemba ever get back to an All-Star level. They don’t need that, and they’re not paying him to be that. What he needs to do is provide the skills he has over his entire career as a pull-up shooting threat; a ball handler able to get into the paint and scramble the defense, allowing others to benefit from the chaos; a defender willing and able to play their part in a grander defensive script.
So my question really is, why can’t he do that? And when he does, don’t be surprised by it or by how much more of a menace these New York Knicks are as a result.
