Charlotte Hornets: Keep Shooting, Kemba Walker

When Kemba Walker scores, the Charlotte Hornets win. It’s starting to become a trend.

When I hear the term “point guard,” I think of a facilitator, a player whose primary purpose is to get his teammates the ball in a good position to score. I think of a player that is focused on doing what’s best for the team as a whole, rather than scoring points. Or, that’s what I used to think of.

For the most part, that’s how point guards have played throughout the history of the NBA. From Magic Johnson to Isiah Thomas to John Stockton,to Jason Kidd and, finally, to Steve Nash, this type of player is what pops into my head when I hear the word “point guard.”

In 2016 that’s not always the case. Positions are almost meaningless; they’re fluid. A point guard can be your leading scorer and your small forward can be your facilitator. As long as you win, it doesn’t matter. The labels are fading away; everyone on the court is simply a basketball player.

The Charlotte Hornets have discovered that this season with their starting point guard, Kemba Walker. Walker is listed as a point guard, but he isn’t necessarily a creator for his teammates. Walker’s job this season is to score and score frequently.

In a season that’s seen Charlotte deal with injuries to several key players, his scoring has been the one constant factor. Even with Nicolas Batum slumping at times and Al Jefferson and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist missing time with injuries, Walker’s career best season has kept the Hornets alive.

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Walker has turned into the heart and soul of the team and his scoring may be the most important factor in their winning season.

For the season, Walker is averaging 21 points per game on 43 percent shooting overall and 37 percent from three-point range. All three marks would be career highs for a single season. Recently there has even been some buzz that his shooting improvement makes him a candidate for Most Improved Player.

Walker has scored at least 20 points in a game 31 times this season. Charlotte’s record in those games is 21-10. When he scores 30 points or more, their record is 8-2. He even has a 40-point game and a 52-point game this season. Of course, Charlotte won both of those games.

The Hornets are currently on a hot streak; they’ve now won 11 of their last 14 games.  In nine of those wins, Walker scored more than 20 points; one win came against the Lakers when Walker struggled with his shot, scoring only 12 points, and one of the wins was Jeremy Lin’s domination of the Cleveland Cavaliers when Walker was out with a sore knee.

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In the three losses, he was limited to 20 points or fewer.

When Kemba gets buckets, the Hornets win games.

Kemba has always been a scorer, dating back to his days at Connecticut, but his improved outside shooting has taken it up a notch. Before this year, his career-best three-point shooting percentage in a season was 33.3 percent, below league average (league average has hovered around 35 percent the last few seasons).

Part of his growth as a shooter can be attributed to the natural improvement some players show as they progress throughout their career, but it’s also thanks to his teammates. He’s never played with a passer as good as Batum.

When they’re on the court together, Batum plays facilitator, which has helped Kemba focus on scoring. Walker is shooting a blistering 46.1 percent from three-point range when receiving a pass from Batum and overall he’s shooting 46.3 percent when shooting after a pass from Batum.

He’s getting more catch-and-shoot three-point attempts than he did last season, 2.6 per game, and he’s taking advantage of it by knocking down 43.1 percent of them. It’s clear that Batum’s presence and Steve Clifford’s decision to open up the offense with more ball movement and three-point shooting has turned Walker into a much better shooter.

Sometimes all it takes is a few more open looks per game.

I’ve long been an admirer of Walker’s skills, but also a bit of a skeptic because I didn’t believe winning with a 6-foot-1, shoot-first point guard as your leading scorer was the best course of action for the Hornets. Until it fails, I can’t argue with these numbers. Kemba has turned a corner and right now it looks like he is going to be the best player on a playoff team.

The Hornets are currently 33-28, and if the season ended today they would finish as the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference. I wouldn’t pick them to beat the third-place Boston Celtics, but it’s not as lopsided a matchup as they’ve seen in seasons past. They could easily steal a few games and give Boston a scare in the first round.

A playoff appearance towards the bottom of the Eastern Conference may not seem like much, but for this organization and this fan base, it’s huge.

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After the 2001-02 season, the original Charlotte Hornets moved to New Orleans, leaving Charlotte without an NBA franchise. After a two-year absence, basketball returned to Charlotte for the 2004-05 season. This time they were called the Bobcats, and they weren’t very good.

They have played 11 full seasons since their return and nine of them have been losing seasons. The only two winning seasons ended with first-round playoff sweeps at the hands of Dwight Howard and LeBron James. This season provides an opportunity for the organization to return to the playoffs and at least win a game, if not a round.

If that’s going to happen Walker is going to be a big part of it.

The success of players like Damian Lillard, Russell Westbrook and Walker has changed the way people think about basketball and what it means to be a point guard. While I still think fondly about the days of Nash and the seven-seconds-or-less Suns, I now understand that there’s more than one way to win in the NBA.

Just because a point guard leads a team in shots doesn’t mean he’s selfish or that he’s hurting the team, it just means he’s different.

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Keep shooting, Kemba.