The Celtics handed Kemba Walker a four-year max contract less than two years ago. On Friday, Brad Stevens packaged the former All-Star point guard with a first-round pick in order to move off the rest of Walker’s contract.
There were many reasons for the Celtics to move on from Walker’s contract so soon into his deal. Bringing aboard Al Horford provides some salary relief and future cap flexibility for the franchise as Boston attempts to build around Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. The case can be made that Horford, even at 35-years-old, was a better fit around that duo and fills a bigger need than Walker for the current Boston roster as a stretch big. Walker’s constant knee issues also made Boston concerned about his availability over the long term.
However, amid multiple reports of tension within the Celtics relationship with Walker over the past year-plus, Bill Simmons talked more about the relationship on his podcast Monday. Simmons suggested Boston’s loyalty towards Walker started to fade before the end of the 2019-20 season after their high-priced point guard did not complete rehab on his ailing knee before the resumption of the season in the Orlando bubble.
“It goes back to the pandemic,” Simmons said on his podcast of the timing of the relationship between the Celtics and Walker going downhill. “His knee was hurt before the pandemic. They give him all these exercises to try to keep working. I didn’t see this reported anywhere but I think I talked about it last year. They gave him all these exercises and stuff to work on his knee because the trainers couldn’t be in the room with anybody. So it was like, “Hey, you have to work on this, do all this stuff.’ From what I heard, he didn’t do it. When he came back to the bubble and they were about to play, his knee was in the same exact shape that it was before the pandemic and then they had to do two months to try to get him in condition to play these playoff games. I think that was when the discontent started. It wasn’t from the Kemba side. I think it was from the Celtics side initially.”
Walker had dealt with multiple surgeries on his knee throughout his career before Boston handed him a four-year, $141 million deal in July 2019. The point guard received a stem cell injection last offseason which delayed his start to the 2020-21 campaign. He only played in 43 games as the team avoided playing Walker on back-to-backs all year. However, Walker’s name was floated in trade rumors for Jrue Holiday as early as last offseason.
“They just felt like they spent all this money on a guy who had a bad knee and then didn’t take care of it before the bubble so I think they were hoping he could rehab it for year two but at the same time, I don’t feel like they had a lot of loyalty after how it played out,” Simmons explained. “You could argue that if he was any better in the Toronto and Miami series, they make the Finals. If he’s even 80 percent Kemba (they do), and he just wasn’t healthy. I think, from that standpoint, they were either like, ‘This guy didn’t work on his knee correctly or his knee is degenerative. Either way, we’re in trouble.’”
Walker currently has two years remaining on his contract worth over $74 million after being sent to Oklahoma City.
