Kemba Walker shouldn't sacrifice a single dollar to help the Hornets
Don't do it.
Kemba Walker just finished a career year with 25.6 ppg and earned an All-NBA third team selection, giving him a chance to earn a “supermax” contract ($221 million over five years) if he stays with the Charlotte Hornets, unless he bolts for greener NBA pastures.
The money is enticing, but you would think he’d want to find himself a situation that isn’t with a franchise that’s made the postseason three times in the past 10 years and hasn’t gotten past the first round in the process.
According to Walker himself on Thursday, the Hornets are somehow his first priority … and he said out loud that he’d be willing to take less than that supermax deal if it would help Charlotte surround him with talent:
It could all be lip service while he’s secretly plotting to join a contender. But if it’s not? It’s a bad idea, and a lot of people think so — his name was trending on Twitter after his comments went viral with people imploring him not to take less than he can earn.
What have the Hornets done since drafting Walker out of UConn in 2011?
They’ve drafted badly — the team took Michael Kidd-Gilchrist over names like Bradley Beal and Damian Lillard in 2012 and Frank Kaminsky over Justise Winslow and Myles Turner in 2015.
They’ve been just good enough to be mediocre, winning 33 games or more in the past six seasons, and as we keep saying year in and year out, the middle is death in the NBA.
The Hornets have also made poor decisions financially — Walker would be sacrificing money to come back to a team that would have these players and their bloated contracts on their payroll:
Nicolas Batum ($25.5M in 2019-20 and a $27.1M player option in 2020-21)
Bismack Biyombo ($17M in 2019-20)
Marvin Williams ($15M in 2019-20)
Cody Zeller (owed nearly $30M in the next two seasons)
Michael Kidd-Gichrist (could opt in for $13M next season)
Although some of those contracts would come off the books in 2020 … really? You want to take a paycut for all of that and gamble on hope that the money the team would save would lure free agents there? There’s also not a ton of young talent in the wings — Malik Monk and Miles Bridges look like long-term projects at best.
Walker shouldn’t give up single dime if he wants to stay in Charlotte. He’s worked so hard to get to where he is, and he shouldn’t do any favors to a team that’s failed to surround him with the talent he deserves to contend with.