Philadelphia 76ers: Kemba Walker to Boston is great news for Philly

While landing Kemba Walker would be a major get for the Boston Celtics, it wouldn’t make them better than the Philadelphia 76ers.

A week ago, it looked like the Boston Celtics were preparing to take a big old L in free agency as two of their top three players were planning to leave town for new homes, but if recent rumors are to be believed, Danny Ainge may have a new pint-size point guard ready to take the reins of Brad Stevens‘ offense.

And honestly, if Kemba Walker does decide to return to the Northeast on a max contract, it couldn’t be a better outcome for the Philadelphia 76ers.

Let’s start by prefacing this at the top: Walker is a great player; an Allen Iverson-esque scorer who can pound-for-pound put up points with the best of them, but as we’ve seen in Charlotte over these past few years, he’s not the kind of player who can make a team a championship-contender on his own.

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Sure, Stevens had a lot of success with Isaiah Thomas running his offense and Walker measures in four inches taller than IT, but most of that success came before Philly’s current run, and the team’s face lifted championship-contending front.

At 6-foot-1, 184-pounds, Walker is small – really small – and can get neutralized when playing against a super-sized starting 5 like that of the Sixers.

Though he’s capable of scoring from pretty much anywhere on the court, even crazy Steph Curry-esque trick shots, he’s not really a force on the defensive end of the court and may struggle to keep up with even a player like J.J. Redick, who feverishly runs around the court looking for open shots.

If the Sixers do run it back, a situation that looks more or less likely with each passing day, it’s hard to imagine Walker being a difference-maker in a Philly-Boston playoff series as the Celtics’ top offensive option.

And really, that’s not a knock against Walker; it’s a knock against the Celtics’ potential roster construction.

Last season, the Celtics were a mess, as they had too many good players who wanted the ball and not enough minutes to go around. With legitimate starting-caliber players like Jaylen Brown, Gordon Hayward, Marcus Morris, Marcus Smart, and even Terry Rozier cycling in and out of the starting five, it was hard for players to settle into defined roles and even harder to keep everyone happy.

However, the team had talent, more talent than the vast majority of teams in the NBA and losing two of the best players for effectively lesser versions of themselves (depending on who the team signs at center) is always going to be a downgrade.

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Who knows, maybe Walker can come into the Celtics locker room and transform their locker room culture with his stalwart energy and steadying presence, but swapping out arguably the best point guard in the league for one with very clear physical deficiencies just doesn’t seem like a winning formula. In sports, you want to build a team to win your division, and adding a 6-foot-1 point guard to faceoff against a 6-foot-10 Ben Simmons simply isn’t going to make the Boston Celtics better than the Philadelphia 76ers anytime soon.