Kemba Walker has made it clear he was not happy about being planted on the Knicks' bench, and if he continues to play like this, he shouldn't have to worry about going back there any time soon.
On Thursday night, albeit in a tight loss to the Wizards, Walker went crazy with 44 points, nine rebounds and eight assists on 14-of-27 shooting, including 7-of-14 from 3-point land. He scored 23 points in the second quarter. The 44 is the most a Knicks player has scored this season and Walker's highest output since 2019.
Walker was banished from the rotation starting on November 30th. Over the next nine games, the Knicks went 2-7 without Walker and their defense got even worse. Less than a week ago, on December 18th, with six Knicks in health and safety protocols and Derrick Rose out with an ankle injury that has since required surgery, Tom Thibodeau was forced to put Walker back into action against the Celtics.
That night, Walker responded with 29 points, hitting five of his 11 3-pointers as a team-high plus-five in his 37 minutes. Three nights later, Walker scored 21 in a win over the Pistons. Add in Thursday's 44, and Walker is averaging 31.3 points on 44-percent 3-point shooting.
In the seven-point loss to the Wizards, Walker was a plus-four in 43 minutes. Do the math, and the Knicks lost the five non-Walker minutes by 11. Their defense got sliced apart, and Walker wasn't any help in this regard. Kyle Kuzma hit two monster 3-pointers in crunch time for Washington. Julius Randle was 0-for-5 from 3 while Alec Burks and Evan Fournier combined to shoot 8-for-29. Walker didn't get enough help.
With Rose now out at least eight weeks, Walker is certain to at least remain in the Knicks' rotation. Whether he will continue to start when Immanuel Quickley returns from his COVID absence remains to be seen (Thibs could go with a Quickley-Alec Burks starting backcourt and bring Walker off the bench in the Rose role), but either way, Walker is not going to be riding the pine any time soon.
Beyond that, might this past week of performances have raised Walker's trade value across the league? It's certainly plausible. It's not to suggest Walker isn't still a flawed player; his defense is a huge problem, and that might not be a road Thibodeau wants to go down any longer than he has to. Teams are still going to look at the whole picture.
But Walker can still score. He's shooting 42 percent from 3 for the season, and he remains a legit pull-up threat. Per Synergy Sports tracking, Walker entered Thursday in the 80th percentile or higher as a pick-and-roll, isolation and dribble-handoff scorer, and his 1.05 points per shot off the dribble registers as elite as well.
How might he fit as a supporting player on a better team rather than having control of the offense? Small samples notwithstanding, he ranks in the 93rd percentile as a spot-up shooter with better than a 61 adjusted field goal percentage, per Synergy, and the 99th percentile with a 75 aFG on catch-and-shoots. If the Knicks continue to struggle, we'll see how much stock a potential trade partner puts in those numbers.
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