Finally home, Kemba Walker hopes to turn back clock with Knicks

Coming off of a disappointing loss to the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of last season’s playoffs, general manager Scott Perry saw Atlanta’s growth up close and personally. He then saw a great many of the conference’s teams improve this past summer. 

The Milwaukee Bucks and Brooklyn Nets are obviously entering the season as the favorites, while the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat are expected to be greatly improved. 

The Philadelphia 76ers are obviously dealing with the Ben Simmons saga, but even without getting a king’s ransom in return for what appears to be an eventual trade, they should be one of the top teams out East. Even the Washington Wizards are entering the season with some optimism.

The question for the Knicks this season is whether they’ve done enough to keep up. And they’ll be counting on Walker to provide the answer.

During their run last season, the Knicks were ultimately undone by their lack of depth from the point guard position. Their hope is that Walker’s ability to attack the basket and create space against his defenders — assuming he still can — will be tools that should allow him to get easy looks for his teammates. That’s not something the Knicks got against Atlanta, and both Randle and Barrett stand to benefit from allowing Walker to create off the dribble.

Perhaps it’s fate that now, at 31 years old and with the deck stacked against him, is when Walker will be charged with the task.

Since taking over in New York, Perry’s modus operandi has been to buy low on players whose perceived potential was greater than the results they were believed to be able to produce as pros. Randle ended up being buried treasure. They struck oil with Rose. But Noah Vonleh, Mario Hezonja and Elfrid Payton? Not so much. Nonetheless, overall, the strategy has worked. But at this point, we obviously don’t know which bucket Walker will end up in.

Fittingly now, only two years removed from being an All-NBA team member, the four-time All-Star will come back to the city where it all began for him in an attempt to recapture past glory.

Peddled by Brad Stevens, the former Boston Celtics coach-turned-team president admitted defeat. Boston made a mistake by signing Walker to a four-year, $141 million contract in 2019. At least, that was the message. Stevens attached a first-round pick to him in order to get the Oklahoma City Thunder to agree to take Walker’s pact in return for Al Horford — a player that Boston coincidentally let go in 2019. Stevens wanted a mulligan.

Truth be told, Oklahoma City isn’t high on any player’s list of cities to spend the latter stages of their career. But still, it’s hard to imagine any player not feeling a bit slighted to learn that a team would rather pay him $50 million to go away than to keep you around. 

Walker, though, obviously wasn’t complaining. When Oklahoma City did, according to the Bronx native, New York was the only option he’d considered. 

The upstart club, for a change, had a duo of budding stars that just led an overachieving group to a playoff berth that didn’t seem certain a year ago. With other young players showing promise — Mitchell Robinson, Immanuel Quickley and Obi Toppin among them — any observer can truly see the Knicks from afar and wonder what they can be.

And when Walker looked around and realized he wasn’t wanted, he probably did, too.

As the Knicks began their 2021-22 season, he sat in his orange and blue jersey. The threads were unfamiliar, but ironically, he looked quite comfy.

“I was born and raised here,” he said.

And in the end, needing one another, Walker and the Knicks united at the right time.

Defying the odds from the beginning, Kemba Walker — New York City’s own — went back to where it all began. And there, in New York, a city and a franchise starved for a winner, he hopes that he can do it once again.