Report: Celtics to seek Kemba Walker trade

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/report-celtics-seek-kemba-walker-173220993.html



Report: Celtics to seek Kemba Walker trade



Dan Feldman
Thu, June 3, 2021, 10:32 AM



The biggest splash Kemba Walker made in the playoffs was with his jacket.

Walker struggled in the Celtics’ first-round loss to the Nets, even before missing the last two games of the series with a knee injury. He shot just 3-for-17 on 3-pointers. Boston got outscored by 21, 18 and 15 points with him on the court in his three games against Brooklyn.

The Celtics might be ready to move on from the point guard.

Brian Robb of MassLive:

league sources expect the Celtics to explore moving him in a trade to help create some current and future salary flexibility

Though he has declined from his time with the Hornets and even last season with Boston, Walker remains a fine starting point guard. He averaged 19.3 points and 4.9 assists per game this season with reasonable efficiency. The Celtics would be worse without him.

But Walker is due $36,016,200 and $37,653,300 (player option) the next two years. Boston projects to be over the luxury-tax line next season even without re-signing Evan Fournier or using the mid-level exception

Walker has battled knee issues the last couple years, and he’s now 31. Small guards like him tend to age poorly.

Marcus Smart could play more point guard, and Payton Pritchard already looks capable as a backup. Smart (27) and Pritchard (23) are better long-term fits as the Celtics build around Jayson Tatum (23) and Jaylen Brown (24).

Yet, for all the same reasons Boston wants to trade Walker, other teams will be reluctant to acquire him. Walker probably holds negative value throughout the league.

That said, the Celtics won’t trade Walker based on his average value to each team. They’ll trade him to the team that covets him most. Perhaps, a team trying to win now will strike out on point guards in free agency and want to trade for Walker.

But it could require attaching sweeteners to unload Walker. At that point, would Boston just prefer to try rehabbing his value?

This is a tricky task for new Celtics president Brad Stevens.


Bob
MY NOTE:  I'm sure this isn't what Danny was envisioning when he got the TPE for Gordon but that could be a sweetener.  There's about $11M left of it.  Might not be enough, but if you're in "win now" mode having a guard like Kemba, whether as a starter or coming off the bench, might be the final piece and getting paid $11M for taking him makes him a cheaper, and therefore lower risk, chance.

Due to the late start of last year's season the Hayward deal didn't happen until later than usual.  That means that the one-year clock on the TPE we got for him didn't start ticking until later.  I believe it happened at the end of November, around the 30th.  Brad has until then to use the rest of it or lose all of it.  I'm pretty confident that next season will start on or before 11/30/21.  Last year it started on Christmas.  The year before that it started 10/17 and they are trying hard to get back to a more normal schedule with 82 games without overdoing the b2bs and without having the season run on into late April and May because that pushes back the playoffs (and might impact the TV contract, which they would never do).  If they split the difference that would be the 2nd or 3rd week of November.  If someone wants a Kemba Walker on their team they might be willing to wait until they see what happens with free agency and other trades, but if they fail to get who they want they might pull the trigger to get him on board in time for camp.


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Bobh

I do not see how the remaining TPE would impacts us in conjunction with trading KW.

The KW situation was left for Brad Stevens to resolve.

It is worse than losing AH, KI and GH to Free Agency.  I do not see a resolution next season.