3.2.1. Boom! Kemba talk. (From BB thread)

[dnbman]

Why the hell are you guys trolling Bismack's dedicated thread talking about Kemba?

Some people.

Lost my compass. Thankfully, you were there to guide me.


Say! What are YOU doing talking about Bismack when this clearly a Kemba Walker thread??!!!

Take your dark magic elsewhere, sorcerer!

[CatNation]

lol @ complaining about Kemba when our bigs have failed so hard that DeSagana Diop is now a starter. Focus people.

[Scottley Crue]

I'm not worried about Kemba. There are reasons to criticize him, but he's coming along fairly nicely and leading a VERY young team. He's being asked to play the way he's playing. He should be fine in the long haul, and we'd be much better served looking at our other positions, save SF, to add talent. To me, Kemba is good enough that, at this point, the only reason you'd be looking to make a change is if you had a clear blue-chip all-star level point guard available to you or some serious talent coming back in a trade.

Agreed, especially this part. He's the best scoring option on this team, so he's filling that roll. Put some more talent around him and I seriously doubt he'll have any issues (literally) playing well with others.

[Adam42R]

To me, we started to go from slip to slide to free-fall when Sessions began to struggle off the bench. Prior to the Thunder game, although he could have some games w/ a fair number of TOs, he was immediately making up for it on the defensive end and converting those into points. Although Gordon began to pick up the scoring (from the Thunder game on) "more" consistently, we miss out on more boards/steals/scrappy plays with Gordon on the floor vs. (a good playing) Sessions. I think Sessions finds that swagger from earlier in the year and it will have a direct effect on how effective Kemba can be.

[fan_of_a_fan]

Why do we have a thread criticizing our best player who's only in the beginning of his 2nd season with a new head coach? This is laughably ludicrous. Chef must have an agenda to get rid of Kemba. Otherwise, this makes no damn sense. Keep talking about BPA but the best players & consensus top 3 in the next 3 draft classes aren't even PGs. WTF!!!

[dnbman]

I think the reason why the conversation isn't WTF is that many fans are still trying to figure out what our future is and our core. So the question arises if Kemba is locked in at pg or should we look for someone else?

I'm of the mind that Kemba is the least of our concerns now, but for most teams, pg is the most important position. That's why I don't think it's crazy that his play and future are being discussed.

[spectre]

Why would we doubt that Kemba would/wouldn't defer to a star? I remember people saying that a lot about Felton when he was here and he seems to be working pretty well with Melo in NY.

Bottom line is he's the best option offensively that we have...so he NEEDS to dominate the ball and score it. Just like with Felton it's a misnomer to suspect a guy can't do something due to his present circumstances requiring him to do something else.

Who do you guys want him to defer to in this present group anyway...esp. since we're now down to 2 other offensive players and Gana/Biz in the starting lineup?

Kemba is the very least of our problems right now. Someone bump that Hornets' thread.

[Bogg]

The argument was never about whether or not the Bobcats should get rid of Kemba, so I don't know where that came from. The question of him becoming an elite point guard came up, and I pointed out that he has to make some serious adjustments to his game before he gets there. I also mentioned that, long-term, he may have more success as a high-minute sixth man than trying to become a distributor in a supporting role to better offensive players (which this team badly needs). The reason we're discussing him and not the current collection of big-man-by-committee is because Kemba actually has a shot at being a meaningful player on a winning Bobcats squad, unlike a Brendan Haywood or Hakim Warrick. There's no compelling conversation to have about bench scrubs, and everyone agrees that the collection of big men needs a serious overhaul, but when it comes to guys who could contribute deep into the playoffs, it's a worthy discussion to have.

[dnbman]

The argument was never about whether or not the Bobcats should get rid of Kemba, so I don't know where that came from. The question of him becoming an elite point guard came up, and I pointed out that he has to make some serious adjustments to his game before he gets there. I also mentioned that, long-term, he may have more success as a high-minute sixth man than trying to become a distributor in a supporting role to better offensive players (which this team badly needs).

Right, but the subtext of both those issues-- elite point guard? sixth man?-- is whether or not Kemba is a sure fire pg for us or whether we need to keep looking, which doesn't necessarily mean we get rid of him. I imagine that will be the focus of Kemba criticism for the next couple of years until he proves it one way or the other.

And it is clear we need bigs, which is a much less interesting conversation.

[fan_of_a_fan]

If you want Kemba to become or think he should be a backup PG then you are without saying that you want to get rid of him, because I'm sure that his agent wouldn't stand by that and other teams with PG problems would be salivating. The argument shouldn't be about if Kemba can be an elite PG because it's not like he was a #1 overall pick. Just be happy if he can be a borderline All-Star PG a la Mike Conley Jr, and he's on a tier for that. Not every player on the roster has to be top 5 (elite) at their position. If that's the case, then the other players/positions besides Kemba have much more ground to make up than him, and that's where the focus of improvements should be at.