The NBA trade deadline was a hot-seat moment for many stars in the league, but one of the most surprising was Kemba Walker, on his way of being a two-time All-Star after blossoming into a franchise player for the Charlotte Hornets.
The rumors of the front office using him as a pot-sweetening player to take away the largely over-inflated contracts of Nicolas Batum, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, and Dwight Howard proved to be mind-shattering for the Bronx native, at which point coach Steve Clifford and team owner Michael Jordan had to intervene and do some damage control.
“I think I was more proactive with him, just explaining to him that A) there’s no untradable player. Go back through NBA history, and player could be traded. But B) I told him it would be very difficult to find a scenario where he could be traded,” said Clifford in The Lowe Post podcast with ESPN's Zach Lowe. “And the fact that there were rumors, which is gonna happen, is because he’s such a good player making less money than he’s worth by a lot. So of course, there were gonna be calls.”
Walker was shaken by the rumor and Jordan quickly moved to address it with the media and with his franchise point guard, being the usual straight shooter he's been through his playing career.
“Michael Jordan had called him and spoke to him, and explained to him that we weren’t looking to trade him,” said Clifford. “And basically we went through the whole thing. Kemba said that Michael was very forthcoming and said, ‘Listen. If there is an unbelievable trade with Player A and Player B, and it would make our team a lot better, of course, anybody could be traded.’”
“But then I explained to him, ‘Look, you’re not gonna be traded. You’re gonna be here. You’re the face of our franchise.’ And I thought Kemba handled it great.”
Walker has a Stephen Curry-like situation, getting paid $48 million over four years (compared to Curry's four-year, $44 million deal prior to the supermax), which could make any team salivate with one more year at $12 million remaining in his contract.
The 6-foot-1 dynamo will be 28 when his contract expires in 2019 and becomes an unrestricted free agent — a path the Hornets will try to avoid at all costs through this upcoming offseason.
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