Kemba Walker is the Charlotte offense.
No team has the drop off after it’s All-Star to its second best player like Charlotte (that player is probably Jeremy Lamb right now, and he comes off the bench), and that puts an insane burden on Walker every night.
Kemba Walker accounted for 88.7 percent of the points scored by Charlotte's starters last night, the highest such percentage in the NBA since starts were first officially recorded in 1970-71.
— Justin Kubatko (@jkubatko) April 2, 2019
Walker tried on Monday night, he put up 47 against the Utah Jazz — the best defense in the NBA since the All-Star break.
It wasn’t enough. The Hornets couldn’t get stops as Donovan Mitchell had 25, Ricky Rubio 20, and Rudy Gobert 18 in a 111-102 Utah win.
Charlotte is three games out of the last playoff spot with five games to play. The Hornets needed that win. Walker tried. Charlotte is all but out of it, fivethirtyeight.com gives it a four percent chance of making the postseason.
I had heard from sources that Walker was frustrated at the trade deadline that no move was made to add talent to the Hornets’ roster (they were in the mix for Marc Gasol but did not land him). If that frustration boils over into this summer when Walker is a free agent, all the money Charlotte can offer him to stay — and as much as he likes the city and living there — may not be enough.