Kemba Walker allegedly on trade block, should Utah Jazz pursue?

With Kemba Walker of the Charlotte Hornets presumably on the trade block, should the Utah Jazz make a play for the All-Star point guard?

Ah, NBA trade season. The exciting time of year where rumors fly, speculation runs rampant, fans dream of blockbuster deals benefiting their teams and high hopes often fall flat. Although the trade deadline can sometimes come and go with little fanfare, there’s no doubting that the weeks leading up to it are always fun as die-hard NBA fans try their best to formulate the most ideal transactions that could help their teams.

And while some of the rumors likely have little substance and other trades that almost go down may never even become public knowledge, it’s always still fun to imagine what might have been.

Bearing all that in mind, one rumor that has started to swirl around the web is that the Charlotte Hornets’ All-Star point guard Kemba Walker is on the trade block, thanks largely to a Washington Post article by Tim Bontemps. This comes as somewhat of a surprise considering that Walker has been an exceptional piece for the Hornets who just earned his first All-Star selection last season.

He’s also on a friendly $12 million per year contract that goes through the 2018-19 season. That’s not bad at all for a guy who just last season finished the year at 23.2 points per game on nearly 45 percent shooting from the field and 40 percent from deep along with 5.5 assists per game. Kemba’s numbers are down somewhat this year, but he’s still as versatile and capable of a point guard option as ever.

So with that all being said, why would Charlotte look to trade him? Well, in short, as Bontemps explained in detail in his piece, the Hornets are wildly under-performing this season, might soon find themselves in a dreadful financial spot and Kemba Walker may be their only truly valuable trade piece that can help them move some bad contracts and hit the refresh button.

In other words, with the playoffs far out of sight and the luxury tax looming next season for a team that hasn’t been competitive at all, Charlotte may need to look to blow things up. Considering their dire situation, it appears unlikely that Kemba will re-sign with them as a free agent anyway and it’s essentially impossible that they’d be able to turn into a contender during the final year of his contract.

Not to mention, Walker has shown some signs of being frustrated with his current situation as it is, which could explain his recent dip in production. Bearing all that in mind, although it’s still quite risky, one can begin to see the logic behind the Hornets perhaps looking to move Kemba Walker now. He could bring back a potentially nice haul, including a first round pick, while also allowing Charlotte to dump one of their less desirable contracts.

With that being the case, is he a guy that the Utah Jazz should then pursue? To be perfectly honest with you, my knee-jerk reaction to this question is to yell, ABSOLUTELY! I’m a huge fan of Kemba Walker’s game, I think he could be an excellent solution at what’s been a woeful point guard spot for years for the Jazz and I even believe that he and Donovan Mitchell could make for a daunting and exhilarating backcourt duo.

Walker has been nothing but a class act throughout his career and at just 27 years old, he still has plenty left in his tank and appears primed to be one of those rare cases that can continue to produce at a high level into his 30s.

However, as I’ve stated in previous pieces, while I’d love to just magically teleport Kemba Walker onto Utah’s roster, the league shockingly doesn’t work that way. First and foremost, if the Hornets move Kemba, it will be out of a desire to retool and I don’t know that Utah has anything outside of Donovan Mitchell (who absolutely won’t be traded) that would be enough to motivate Charlotte to pull the trigger.

Would the Hornets be interested in Utah’s first round pick and some expiring contracts that would further help alleviate their impending financial issues? Maybe. Or what if Utah were to take on one of Charlotte’s undesirable contracts such as that of Nic Batum whose pay currently stands at $22.4 million and balloons to over $27 million in the 2020-21 season? Perhaps. And, as a side note, someone like Batum might be able to revamp his career in Utah and fit well alongside fellow Frenchman Rudy Gobert.

But I have an extremely hard time believing that such offers will be the best Charlotte can get. Several other teams should be interested in Kemba and many of them would be able to dangle much more attractive assets in front of them than Utah could. Teams doing salary dump trades is pretty common, but moving an All-Star as part of a salary dump deal is pretty rare, and even if Utah includes a first round pick, their other offerings still feel quite beatable.

Not only that, but considering that Kemba would then only have one more year left on his contract before likely demanding a hefty pay raise (or flat out walking in free agency), trading away a valuable pick or other assets could be quite the risk. The last thing the Jazz would want to have happen is to pay a high price for Walker just to lose him before he helps them reach any state of contention.

So, I don’t think that attaining him before this year’s trade deadline is realistic at all. That said, despite the unlikelihood or the risks, the Jazz front office still absolutely should be giving the Hornets a call to see if they could potentially strike up some sort of deal. I like the idea of Utah pursuing Kemba Walker in a trade and hope they at least give it a shot, I just don’t feel it’s very probable.

However, considering that the Utah Jazz appear likely to have ample cap space during the next two offseasons while several other teams may have handicapped themselves somewhat by overspending in recent summers, I could see Kemba Walker being an ideal free agent target once he hits the market in 2019.

Sure, a ton could change by then. Maybe Donovan Mitchell or Dante Exum will be the clear-cut starting point guard. Maybe Walker will have declined. Maybe Utah will have spent heavily in 2018 and Walker’s new contract demands will be out of their range. Maybe Walker will have no desire to come to Utah as an unrestricted free agent.

There’s a lot of scenarios. But if we dummy this whole situation down and look at it in simpler terms based on what we currently know, it’s hard to argue that Kemba wouldn’t be an exciting fit on the Jazz roster.

So be it at this year’s deadline or during his not so distant unrestricted free agency, Kemba Walker should definitely be on the Utah Jazz’s radar. Pulling it off wouldn’t necessarily be easy, but for the Jazz to truly ascend back up the Western Conference standings, they’ll need Dennis Lindsey and Co. to work a similar brand of magic sooner rather than later.