There was a lot of excitement surrounding the Boston Celtics when they managed to swiftly replace Kyrie Irving with Kemba Walker. Now, that premier signing is no longer appearing to be all that great. In fact, the team tried to trade him aggressively before the NBA season.
During a recent appearance on the Colin Cowherd podcast, Rich Bucher made it clear that rival NBA GMs are ‘ticked off’ with Danny Ainge for trying to dump Kemba Walker, who was ‘damaged goods.’
“A lot of GMs are ticked off at Danny, because Danny tried like hell to move Kemba at the beginning of the year knowing that his knee wasn’t right,” Ric Bucher said on Colin Cowherd’s podcast. “He was trying to get rid of damaged goods.”
The Celtics no longer appear to be a championship contender because Kemba Walker hasn’t quite managed to find his form after dealing with knee issues. His dynamic shot creation and playmaking are crucial to Boston’s success to complement Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Lately, that hasn’t been there.
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So far this season, Walker has appeared in 15 games and is psoting averages of 17.0 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 4.1 assists. His efficiency has been concerning as his output of 0.895 points per possession (PPP) ranks 146th among the 163 players with at least 250 scoring possessions.
Given how underwhelming Walker has looked so far this season, it appears as though there’s only further concern around the NBA about his immediate and long-term impact. A player of his size has to be executing at a high-level offensively to make up for their limitations.
While it seems unlikely a team would feel compelled to trade for Kemba Walker during the season, he remains a name to watch in NBA trade rumors. That will only intensify when the offseason rolls around.
