Leap Year - The Kemba Walker Thread III

Joest2003 · Post #1621 » by **Joest2003** » Fri Dec 16, 2016 3:00 pm

Honestly I was going to say he needs a game to rest anyways. Clearly not a rest issue because if so he would rest Saturday game vs Atlanta since we don't play again after that until tuesday. To me he clearly looks gassed.

Post #1622 » by **fatlever** » Wed Dec 21, 2016 5:59 am

Read on Twitter

catch20two · Post #1623 » by **catch20two** » Wed Dec 21, 2016 2:18 pm

He'd make a good 6th man.

Joest2003 · Post #1624 » by **Joest2003** » Wed Dec 21, 2016 2:28 pm

Good to see Kemba get back on track. I think we would benefit from him resting 1 game a month in the long run. Dude takes a a beating on the court being so small you can tell it was wearing him down plus we need him to be fresh for playoffs unlike last year.

Braggins · Post #1625 » by **Braggins** » Wed Dec 21, 2016 3:01 pm

catch20two wrote:He'd make a good 6th man.

Yeah, he'll never be good enough to be a full time starter but hed be a solid instant offense guy off the bench. We need to trade for a pass first guy like Rubio or Lin to start.

Post #1626 » by **fatlever** » Wed Dec 21, 2016 3:18 pm

Joest2003 wrote:Good to see Kemba get back on track. I think we would benefit from him resting 1 game a month in the long run. Dude takes a a beating on the court being so small you can tell it was wearing him down plus we need him to be fresh for playoffs unlike last year.

Agreed rest him vs warriors and cavs.

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mrknowitall215 · Post #1627 » by **mrknowitall215** » Wed Dec 21, 2016 5:24 pm

Read on Twitter

amcoolio · Post #1628 » by **amcoolio** » Wed Dec 21, 2016 8:50 pm

fatlever wrote:

Read on Twitter

That is a pretty sad stat considering Westbrook must have 10 or so of those this year

Surprised Muggsy didn't have more, he used to have crazy assist numbers. I know Brevin Knight couldn't score against a shoebox. We really haven't had much assist production out of our PG aside from those two

Zombiesonics · Post #1629 » by **Zombiesonics** » Wed Dec 21, 2016 11:04 pm

I think he needs a DNP rest too. injuries coming out of nowhere in the L now.

Post #1630 » by **fatlever** » Sat Dec 24, 2016 5:59 pm

Kemba's splits for November and December. November is starting to look like one of Kemba's random hot months. December looks more like the Kemba we've seen over the past few years. To be clear, December 2016 Kemba is still fantastic, but he's more in line with expectations compared to November 2016 Kemba, which was a level we had never seen on a long-term basis.

http://stats.nba.com/player/#!/202689/traditional/

November - 24.4ppg, 4.7rpb, 4.9apg, 48.1%FG, 43.1%3PT
December - 19.8ppg, 3.7rpg, 6.3apg, 42.7%FG, 38.5%3PT

I'm not sure that December 2016 Kemba will be good enough to beat out all the other PGs in the EC for the ASG - Lowry, IT and Kyrie are looking like locks right now, playing at similar level (or better in some cases), on better teams. If the coaches vote in 4 PGs for the team then it will come down to Kemba vs Wall for that last spot.

Braggins · Post #1631 » by **Braggins** » Sat Dec 24, 2016 6:13 pm

Has anyone noticed that some of the guys who were big time Kemba bashers have completely stopped posting here since Kemba made the leap last season? I wonder if its coincidence.

catch20two · Post #1632 » by **catch20two** » Sat Dec 24, 2016 6:22 pm

Braggins wrote:Has anyone noticed that some of the guys who were big time Kemba bashers have completely stopped posting here since Kemba made the leap last season? I wonder if its coincidence.

I don't remember them. I remember one guy that was a undercover DJ Augustin fan/friend but I can't remember his username. That's about it. Other than that the Lin crew because they wanted Lin starting.

Post #1633 » by **fatlever** » Sat Dec 24, 2016 6:58 pm

Braggins wrote:Has anyone noticed that some of the guys who were big time Kemba bashers have completely stopped posting here since Kemba made the leap last season? I wonder if its coincidence.

Not including all the pseudo Hornets fans from last year, who were really just Lin fans...

Hard to keep track of all the posters who have disappeared. I remember Dy_Nasty was not a fan of Kemba. Not sure what happened to him. Sik, never a big fan of Kemba. He was banned for some of his shenanigans on the CA board. Of course the biggest Kemba hater, LeoLovin got banned several years ago.

Slam and I have been pretty hard on Kemba over the years. But I am happy to admit when proven wrong about one of our players.

Braggins · Post #1634 » by **Braggins** » Sat Dec 24, 2016 7:52 pm

fatlever wrote:
Braggins wrote:Has anyone noticed that some of the guys who were big time Kemba bashers have completely stopped posting here since Kemba made the leap last season? I wonder if its coincidence.

Not including all the pseudo Hornets fans from last year, who were really just Lin fans...

Hard to keep track of all the posters who have disappeared. I remember Dy_Nasty was not a fan of Kemba. Not sure what happened to him. Sik, never a big fan of Kemba. He was banned for some of his shenanigans on the CA board. Of course the biggest Kemba hater, LeoLovin got banned several years ago.

Slam and I have been pretty hard on Kemba over the years. But I am happy to admit when proven wrong about one of our players.

Dy_Nasty seems to have disappeared. Sik has stopped in a couple times to praise Kemba, but its been a while. I was never able to keep track of the Lin fans lol.

Its the same story with me for Clifford and some other guys. I tend to be a glass half empty kind of guy and usually expect the worse, but I'm always happy when I'm wrong.

GlenRiceARoni · Post #1635 » by **GlenRiceARoni** » Sat Dec 24, 2016 7:53 pm

I was pretty unhappy with the pick i was squarely in the ken faried or Kawhi Leonard camp (probably my best nba draft call ever)... I really had a bad taste in my mouth with the Augustin pick and kemba seemed like a college player not an nba one.

He was certainly much better last year than I assumed he would be. The first month of this season he was light years ahead of where I thought he'd be.

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Braggins · Post #1636 » by **Braggins** » Sat Dec 24, 2016 8:04 pm

GlenRiceARoni wrote:I was pretty unhappy with the pick i was squarely in the ken faried or Kawhi Leonard camp (probably my best nba draft call ever)... I really had a bad taste in my mouth with the Augustin pick and kemba seemed like a college player not an nba one.

He was certainly much better last year than I assumed he would be. The first month of this season he was light years ahead of where I thought he'd be.

I'm a huge Kemba fan, but I didnt think the pick made sense at the time for Charlotte.

catch20two · Post #1637 » by **catch20two** » Sat Dec 24, 2016 8:47 pm

I don't think Kawhi Leonard becomes the player he is today if he wasn't drafted (draft day trade via Indy) by the Spurs and patiently groomed into a star in their system.

I think Kemba was the perfect pick for Charlotte at the time and they were the perfect team for him.

Post #1638 » by **fatlever** » Sat Dec 24, 2016 9:31 pm

Yeah, it's definitely an interesting debate - How different would Leonard and MKG be if they swapped teams in their 1st years? Now, I'm not sure Pop could turn MKG into a shooter, but I have a feeling Leonard never reaches his ceiling stuck on the bad Bobcats teams of years past either.

Regarding the Kemba draft, If I remember correctly my thoughts were...

- wanted no part of Tristan and hated the rumors of us trading up to get him.
- wanted no part of the Morris twins who we were rumored to like
- indifferent between Kemba and Knight
- bought way too hard into the Biyombo pre-draft hype
- would have been OK with Leonard, Klay and Burks (two out of 3 aint bad)
- definitely liked Faried for our 2nd pick (pre-trade)
- also really like Singleton and Vucevic for our 2nd pick (pre-trade)

So basically, I was hit or miss. Singleton being the biggest miss, by far.

LamarMatic7 · Post #1639 » by **LamarMatic7** » Sat Dec 24, 2016 9:52 pm

Of course, he wasn't MKG-bad, but Kawhi pretty much couldn't shoot the ball. I mean, open up any draft evaluation page and you'll get stuff like this.

In the half-court, Leonard ranks seventh of all wings in the percentage of his possessions coming from isolations, at 15%. His .721 PPP on these possessions ranks 15th, indicating that he struggled to create shots effectively for himself last season. He was unable to get to the free throw line consistently (11.3%, 12th) for many of these same reasons, and did not finish around the basket at a high rate, where his 1.069 PPS ranked 13th.

Leonard is not only an average ball-handler, but he also struggles to make shots consistently from beyond the arc. His 0.743 points per shots on jumpers ranks 16th of 17 in the class, where he shot an abysmal 31% from the field. His struggles extend both to his catch and shoot jumpers (32%) and pull-ups (28%).

Luc Richard Mbah a Moute is the comparison you get on DraftExpress and NBADraft.net.

So the fact that he's the best perimeter defender in the league, could become a three-time DPOY (something that has never been done by a wing or guard) at the age of 26 and in the same time has upped his scoring to an efficient 24PPG while mostly relying on somewhat difficult off-the-dribble looks is absolutely astonishing. No way we have the coaching or infrastructure here (especially following the lockout year) to get something like that out of him on offense. Cliff would have loved him once he got his hands on Kawhi in 2013-14 (and I guess his DPOY ceiling wouldn't have changed), but the Kawhi train was already rolling by then in San Antonio.

The reason for it being so unbelievable is that this was a guy who had no clue how to shoot and you couldn't meet coaching staffs all that time before the lockout ended. And Chip Engelland still made a beast out of him.

Just amazing. It's a tribute to the organization the Spurs are.

Post #1640 » by **BigSlam** » Sun Dec 25, 2016 1:38 am

fatlever wrote:Kemba's splits for November and December. November is starting to look like one of Kemba's random hot months. December looks more like the Kemba we've seen over the past few years. To be clear, December 2016 Kemba is still fantastic, but he's more in line with expectations compared to November 2016 Kemba, which was a level we had never seen on a long-term basis.

http://stats.nba.com/player/#!/202689/traditional/

November - 24.4ppg, 4.7rpb, 4.9apg, 48.1%FG, 43.1%3PT
December - 19.8ppg, 3.7rpg, 6.3apg, 42.7%FG, 38.5%3PT

While his ppg and percentages may have dipped a little, look at those assists. That's an impressive uptick - and something I love to see.

Tells me he's reading the defence and taking what it's giving him showing a willingness to get others involved while still getting his own.

"BBMF'ers"