Charlotte Hornets: Kemba Walker Picks Up Where He Left Off

Kemba Walker is off to a hot start. Can he be even better than he was last season for the Charlotte Hornets?

2015-16 was the definition of a breakout season for Charlotte Hornets point guard Kemba Walker. The former Connecticut star had easily the best season of his career, averaging 20.9 points and 5.2 assists per game on 42.7 percent from the floor and 37.1 percent from three-point range.

He asserted himself as Charlotte’s best player, and led the Hornets to 48 wins. Through the first three games of the current season, Walker looks poised to to follow up his career best season with another stellar campaign.

Walker is averaging 23.3 points per game on 44.9 percent shooting and 45 percent from deep through Charlotte’s first three games. The team is 2-1 in that span with victories over the Milwaukee Bucks and the Miami Heat.

Walker’s best outing of the young season came Saturday night against the Boston Celtics when he poured in 29 points on 10-for-16 shooting. The Hornets lost, but Walker put on a show for the home fans.

Over this small sample, he’s been particularly aggressive driving to the basket. His free-throw rate is currently 42.9 percent. The Hornets should hope this trend continues throughout the season. That would be a career high mark for Walker, a career 82.3 percent free-throw shooter.

Any trip he takes to the line is free points for Charlotte.

More from Hoops Habit

Walker’s contributions to this team are even more important than they were a season ago.

Swapping out Jeremy Lin for Ramon Sessions and Courtney Lee for Marco Belinelli means there are fewer reliable scorers in Charlotte’s guard rotation.

If Clifford doesn’t trust Sessions to play for long stretches that could eventually mean more minutes for Walker.

Nicolas Batum is expected to take some of the scoring and play-making burden off of Walker’s shoulders, but his early season play has been rough.

Still, it’s only Halloween. There’s plenty of time for Batum to return to form.

Walker’s slithery drives to the rim and three-point shooting are what makes this Charlotte offense go. Not to mention his tendency to make big shots late in games. Consider this passage from an October article by Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer.

"The NBA keeps a statistic called “late and close” points. That is defined as the last two minutes of the final quarter of a game, when the margin is four points or less. Walker led the league in that category last season with 83 points."

"How clutch was Walker in those situations? In “late and close” time, he shot 45 percent from the field and 90 percent from the foul line.“It’s tough to be in that situation – to have the ball in your hand with all that pressure to win the game,” Batum said.“He doesn’t fear that. That’s what he wants”"

There is obviously some worry that regression will kick in, especially in terms of Walker’s outside shooting. When you look at his season by season statistics last season is the outlier.

Is it a season that signals what type of player Walker will be for the prime of his career, or is it a one season blip on the radar? I’d lean significantly towards the former.

Last season he checked a few boxes off of his NBA accomplishment checklist. He averaged over 20 points per game over a full season, and he led his team to three playoff wins.

Next on the list is for Walker to make the Eastern Conference All-Star team and for the Hornets to win a playoff series.

Next: Cody Zeller As Sixth Man?

There’s still a long way to go, but he’s off to a good start.

Home/Charlotte Hornets