Philadelphia 76ers: Kemba Walker would be an ideal Tyrese Maxey mentor

Kemba Walker returning to New York to play for his hometown team was one of the feel-good stories of the first month of the 2021-22 NBA season.

Sure, how things ended in Boston wasn’t ideal – for him, it worked out fine for the Philadelphia 76ers – and it’s never fun to be so unwanted that the lowly OKC Thunder outright ate $53.6 million in dead money to get Walker off the books, but for the low-low (read: incredibly high) price of $20 million, the Bronx native effectively bought his freedom and a chance to play for a contender once more.

When you’re a Bronx native, signing with a New York Knicks squad that just made the playoffs for the first time since 2013 is most certainly sweeter than joining up with those dastardly Nets across the Manhatten Bridge in Brooklyn, and with a ton of cap space to play with, Tom Thibadeau‘s squad quickly came to a deal to bring the High Scool phenom back to basketball mecca to be the team’s new starting point guard… or so he thought.

No, in a twist of fate that surely took more than a few non-New York basketball fans by surprise, Walker has been removed from the Knicks’ rotation moving forward and will instead be replaced by Alec Burks, a player fans in the City of Brotherly Love know very well.

If this trend continues, could the Philadelphia 76ers get in on a trade for Kemba Walker once he becomes eligible to be moved on December 15th? I don’t know if they will, but they definitely should, as the four-time All-Star would be a perfect mentor for Tyrese Maxey in addition to filling some much-needed minutes at the one.

The Philadelphia 76ers could secure a steal in Kemba Walker.

The back half of November wasn’t particularly kind to Kemba Walker.

After bursting onto the scene with a strong start, averaging 12.8 points, three assists, and 1.2 steals in 25.7 minutes, all the while hitting 42.5 percent of his 5.6 shots a game from beyond the arc, Walkers’ overall production dipped considerably over the next five games, with his points dropping to 8.8, his 3 point shooting percentage and attempts down to 36.8 and 3.6 respectfully, and his minutes cut to 21.3, mainly due to being removed from the team’s end of game lineups.

Now granted, those are still pretty darn good statistical numbers for a rotational point guard, but after watching Alec Burks show up and show out versus the Hawks, Coach Thibs decided to tighten his rotation, keep this Atlanta lineup intact, and ultimately bench Walker in the hopes of keeping the team’s playoff hopes alive.

Per A. Sherrod Blakely of Bleacher Report, the Knicks could ultimately decide to move on from Walker for a better-fitting piece before the 2022 trade deadline, with John Wall a player the author tabbed as a potential replacement.

Is Wall better than Walker? Honestly, who even knows, as he hasn’t played all season, but the key takeaway from Blakely’s piece is one of his sources believes that Walker will be available when his contract becomes tradeable on December 15th and could be on the move to a team looking to take a swing on reviving his career yet again.

Should the Philadelphia 76ers be that team? Potentially so, especially if they have another deal in place to move Ben Simmons.

Sidebar: While the Sixers could conceivably trade Simmons to the Knicks, it’s hard to ID a package that makes sense unless, of course, RJ Barrett is in play, or Daryl Morey really likes Julius Randle.

To secure Walker in a trade, the Sixers would need to surrender at least $6.54 million in matching salary to get a deal done, which is easier said than done based on the team’s current roster compensation. They can’t trade Furkan Korkmaz until after the deadline in March, and the Knicks probably wouldn’t want to take on young prospects like Paul Reed, Shake Milton, and/or Jaden Springer in a deal alongside Georges Niang to aggregate the requisite money needed to make the deal legal.

Outside of trading, say, Tobias Harris for a package of Walker and Evan Fournier, the most logical trade would be Walker for assured Thibodeau guy Danny Green, which is probably an upgrade for Philly considering their desperate need for on-ball playmakers, but would leave the team without a starting small forward unless Georges Niang takes on an even bigger role and plays at the three for 32 minutes of action a night.

But hey, let’s set the financial aspects aside for a moment. In the NBA, if two parties want to make a deal, they can usually figure out a way to get it done, even if it involves roping in additional teams for financial purposes. How would Walker fit in with the Sixers on the court, aka the whole reason a playoff team makes a trade in the first place?

I like the fit a lot.

Assuming Walker is fine with coming off the bench, which is a borderline necessity if he’s on the same roster as resident ironman Tyrese Maxey, Walker could bring a veteran presence to the Sixers’ second unit that has been desperately missing when Shake Milton enters the game. Walker is an underrated passer, with 40 double-digit assist games in his career, a savvy ball handler, and a sharpshooter from both the field and from beyond the arc.

While his turnover percentage isn’t elite, and a hip injury has seemingly robbed the 11th-year vet of some of his explosiveness, Walker can still get points for a team both off and on the ball and go for 20 in any given game. With quality screeners like Joel Embiid and Andre Drummond, Walker could be used very similarly to Milton on-ball and Seth Curry off the ball, with the added bonus of having enough just to hit the paint if the situation presents itself.

And best of all? Walker could actually serve as a mentor for Maxey, who, get this, has never actually been teammates with another traditional point guard save George Hill for a few months earlier this year. Though the duo probably wouldn’t overlap too much on the court together, as neither is a particularly good defender, and a backcourt with an average height of 6-foot-1 isn’t ideal outside of a situational basis, Maxey could lean on Walker if he has questions, pick his brain about the what it takes to become a multiple-time All-Star, and, most importantly of all, have a player with a similar set of skills to tangibly model his game after.

If Maxey really is the Sixers’ point guard of the future, giving him a resource like Walker could be as valuable as Embiid’s time being teammates with Elton Brand before he was healthy enough to take the court, only Walker is still a double-digit scorer and Brand came out of retirement to essentially sit in a jersey on the bench instead of a suit.

The Philadelphia 76ers’ biggest need is a big wing who can score a lot of points in a variety of different ways from the small forward spot. If Daryl Morey can secure a player like that in a Ben Simmons trade, it’ll go a long way in supercharging the Sixers’ roster and giving the team a legit chance to do some damage in the playoffs. But after that, the team’s second-biggest need has to be a veteran point guard who can hit 3s, run the show, and provide support for Tyrese Maxey both on and off the court. Kemba Walker fits that bill better than pretty much any other potentially available player in the league with a price tag of less than $12 million. If he ultimately remains available after December 15th and the Sixers want to make a small deal to upgrade their roster in the interim, there are a whole lot worse options to upgrade the roster than secure the right to a four-time All-Star who can still very much go for a player like Danny Green.