The real underrated player

We always talk about guys like Conley, Lillard or Lowry being underrated but this season, I really think the most underrated player by far is Kemba Walker. Charlotte is 15-6 since Jan 18, and a surprising 34-28 (who would’ve thought???) this season, and Kemba has clearly been the driving force during that stretch and their great season as a whole.

If Lillard was the biggest all-star snub in the league, Walker is a close second. I understand him not being selected the first time around, but not even a replacement? Ridiculous. One can’t bring the wins argument in the equation this time around because the guy who beat him out, Al Horford, had his Hawks was only 1 game above the Hornets, and he clearly hasn’t been carrying the team like Kemba has all year. Kemba’s averaged 20.5, 4.4, 5 and 1.8 stls with only 2 turnovers a game pre-allstar break. Without a doubt all-star numbers, especially considering he had been keeping, along with Batum, a surprising Hornets team above .500 before the allstar break.

And that was with an injured Big Al, an injured and the rusty and then injured MKG and an oft-injured Batum, although Batum did help a lot in that run, but declined as the season progressed.

Now his numbers after the all-star break are another story. In 9 games where the Hornets went 7-2, Walker has been leading them with averaging 25.2 points, 4.6 rebs, 6.1 assists a steal and 3 treys all while shooting 49% from the field and comittiing ONLY 2 TOs a game, which is huge for a PG ranking 8th in MPG with 36mpg.

Hear me out, Kemba’s break-out season without a doubt is correlated with Charlotte’s surprsing 6 games above .500 season so far but for some reason, they*the team) and Kemba, aren’t being talked about at all. I don’t think many people had the Hornets in the playoffs when the season started (especially without MKG), let alone be competeing for a top 4 seed, and Kemba needs a lot of recogniton for leading them to that.