Kemba Walker started his career in the 2011-12 season as he got drafted by the Charlotte Hornets with the 9th overall pick. He has been an underrated player for much of his career, and there were many times that some NBA analysts have said that Hornets should just trade him and enter the rebuilding process. While in the first seasons of his career he may have needed 4 years to fully show what he’s made off, he definitely didn’t deserve to be traded in order to rebuild. Maybe if it was vice versa then it would be more understandable because he has been part of a squad where he had to carry the load almost all by himself and he would’ve definitely fared better on a team where he would have other teammates who would share the burden of leading the team.
Let’s go back to his earlier years, from the 2011-12 season to the 2014-15 season where he would average around 17 points per game while on the rookie year he averaged only 12 points per game. The 2015-16 season was the breakout season for him, he managed to finally elevate his game a little bit more and get noticed by people. By averaging 20.9 points, 4.4 rebounds per game (which is a career high for him so far) and also 5.2 assists per game, he showed to the world that he is becoming a force to be reckoned with. But his best season so far came in 2016-17 where they made the playoffs and he also had a career high of points with 23.2 points per game, while shooting 44% from the floor and almost 40% from the 3-point line. After this season he became one of the best point guards in the league.
But despite these performances something was missing in Charlotte since they never managed to actually become a powerhouse. In 2016 the front office signed Nicolas Batum to a 5-year contract worth $120 million, but he didn’t live up to the expectations that the franchise had for him, so Kemba got a solid player in Batum to help him, but without another star, that would just mean that he would have to do everything on his own. The 2016-17 wasn’t a good season for Charlotte as Kemba had to yet again do everything on his own. While having a career high in scoring a good thing for his personal stats, but if we look at the bigger picture we can see that he had to take that responsibility, because the 15.1 points per game Batum and a bunch of role players weren’t going to help him get to the playoffs. So, understandably they ended the season as the 11th seed on the Eastern Conference with a record of 36 wins and 46 losses.
Surprise, surprise, the 2017-18 season was again expected to be a good season for Kemba and co. and they thought that by adding Dwight Howard things might actually get better, since Kemba would work perfectly well with Howard, by using a pick & roll they would demolish defenses, but stats show a different story. While Howard had 16.6 points per game and 12.5 rebounds per game, they failed to go to the playoffs again and they finished the season with the same record as the last season, 36 wins and 46 losses.
So, we come to the 2017-18 season where it seems that Kemba Walker was fed up with trying to rely on other players and has been putting up some monstrous numbers. As of this moment, Charlotte are 11-11 and Kemba is averaging 27.1 points per game, 6.2 assists and 4.4 rebounds.
A game that perfectly describes his season is the game against the Philadelphia 76ers at home, where he scored an amazing 60 points and they still lost the game, that only shows the fact that he scored more than 50% of his team’s points, they still lost. He scored in the 3rd quarter alone 16 points. But he had no help whatsoever from his team mates, so he has been doing the same thing for many years now, without complaining while also showing loyalty to the club, which is almost unseen nowadays on this league. And this wasn’t the only great performance that he has had this season, the next game he dropped 43 on the Boston Celtics. That is 103 points in just 2 games. As a matter of fact, he has had three 40+ performances this season, besides these two that we mentioned, he scored 41 points against the Milwaukee bucks on October 17th, 2018.
So, to answer the question of Kemba Walker’s new contract, I would have to say that Charlotte Hornets owe him the max contract, for putting up great numbers night in and night out for many years and showing immense loyalty to this franchise.