Kemba Walker might not be on the chopping block after all. Or at least that’s why MJ would have you believe. If you are a betting man, you may want to take a piece of that action on sports betting sites. But for now we know this….
On the heels of a report from ESPN.com’s Adrian Wojnarowski last week that posted the Charlotte Hornets were ready to deal their All-Star floor general and begin anew, team owner Michael Jordan spoke with the Charlotte Observer‘s Rick Bonnell and poured cold water all over the speculation:
“We bred him, we chose him, we groomed him to be a good player for us,” Jordan said of Walker, who the Hornets drafted ninth overall in 2011, to a great extent because Jordan saw traits in Walker that reminded him of his own playing career.
“I’m not looking to trade Kemba, but I would listen to opportunities.”
This doesn’t sound like the most ironclad refusal. If anything, it sounds like Jordan trying to drum up the price tag on Walker by saying the Hornets aren’t interested in moving him. This way, when teams make their pitches, they won’t be trying to take full advantage of the how desperate Charlotte seems.
And make no mistake, this franchise should verge on desperate.
The Hornets sit well outside the Eastern Conference’s playoff picture and don’t have the trade assets necessary to make immediate improvement. What’s more, with money wrapped up in Walker, Nicolas Batum, Dwight Howard, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Marvin Williams, they won’t have the flexibility this summer to make any substantive changes. Nor will they have much wiggle room in the near future.
Howard comes off the books after next year, but that will coincide with a raise for Walker. And the Hornets are locked into Batum through 2020-21, assuming he exercises his fifth-year player option (which he will).
Shopping Walker now, then, is the smart move. His value won’t get any higher as he nears free agency, and the Hornets need a sweetener of his caliber to escape some of the longer-term money clogging up their financial pipeline.
