{"id":17838,"date":"2018-12-04T16:49:08","date_gmt":"2018-12-04T21:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonnba.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=17838"},"modified":"2018-12-04T16:49:08","modified_gmt":"2018-12-04T21:49:08","slug":"kemba-walker-showing-superstar-potential-in-contract-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2018\/12\/04\/kemba-walker-showing-superstar-potential-in-contract-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Kemba Walker Showing Superstar Potential in Contract Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/walkeke02.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kemba Walker<\/a><\/strong> has always been known as a talented player. He gained national recognition for his performance that led the University of Connecticut not only to a Big East title but also a national championship. Walker averaged 23.5 points in his final season with Connecticut. He has always put up excellent numbers in his NBA career but never has done enough to stand out. This year he&#8217;s making a case to become league\u00a0MVP.<\/p>\n<h1>Kemba Walker Showing Superstar Potential in Contract Year<\/h1>\n<h3>Career Highs<\/h3>\n<p>Through his first seven seasons,\u00a0Kemba Walker averaged 18.7 points in his career. This year Walker is averaging 26.5 points through 23 games. He&#8217;s also shooting 44 percent from the field. Both these season averages are career highs. Not only is he scoring and shooting the ball at a high percentage, but he is also dishing the ball out at a career-high 6.2 assists per game.<\/p>\n<h3>Man On a Mission<\/h3>\n<p>Through 22 games this season, Kemba Walker\u00a0has scored at least 30 points in seven games and 40 points in three games. Walker even scored a career-high\u00a060 points in a November loss to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/nba-teams\/philadelphia-76ers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Philadelphia 76ers<\/a>. He also drained a career-high ten three-pointers\u00a0in a game against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/nba-teams\/memphis-grizzlies\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Memphis Grizzlies<\/a>. Being in the last year of his contract, Kemba Walker seems inspired to show the league that he deserves a max deal wherever he signs.<\/p>\n<h3>Putting the Team on His Back<\/h3>\n<p>Kemba Walker has been the leading scorer in six of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/nba-teams\/charlotte-hornets\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Charlotte Hornets<\/a> 11 wins. In the Hornets 23 games played, Walker has been the leading scorer in 14 of them. The Charlotte Hornets have two other players averaging points in double digits. Besides Walker, the player averaging the highest total points is <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/l\/lambje01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jeremy Lamb<\/a><\/strong> averaging 15.2 points per game. Walker could seriously become a top MVP candidate at the end of the season should this team make the playoffs. He&#8217;s playing his highest level of basketball with very little help. This may also be the reason he&#8217;s putting the team on his back because he has very little help. Regardless, Kemba has inserted himself into the conversation as one of the top five point guards in the NBA right now.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"7cUzOXCaRtFbCN3PVzvSIw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/941634086\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'7cUzOXCaRtFbCN3PVzvSIw',sig:'JfrB19FgNs-H--mytGm_OGMslMQIckKFE4YhPsTLL4c=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'941634086',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kemba Walker has always been known as a talented player. He gained national recognition for his performance that led the University of Connecticut not only to a Big East title but also a national championship. Walker averaged 23.5 points in his final season with Connecticut. He has always put up excellent numbers in his NBA [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2271,"featured_media":17885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1608,7,62],"tags":[37,1247,169,605,1744],"class_list":["post-17838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-basketball","category-hornets","category-nba","tag-charlotte-hornets","tag-jeremy-lamb","tag-kemba-walker","tag-nba-eastern-conference","tag-uconn-huskies"],"modified_by":"Jordan Daly","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}