Sigh, Kemba...

[Gurleyman]

He's had a chance to step up with D.J. Augustin out the last three games, and it is not going well. Today's game is brutal - down 48-28 at the half to Washington, as Kemba is 4-15 and the other four starters have a combined 11 shot attempts.

 

[SlicinNDyson11]

Kemba had a solid game yesterday against the Knicks, but he is truly the only scorer the Bobcats have tonight. Henderson was out tonight, Maggette is out, Augustin is also out their starting backcourt is Kemba and Matt Carroll i mean come on he's having a very solid rookie year for the most part.

 

[Gurleyman]

Yeah, I know he has crap around him. But Matt Carroll was 3-3 in the first half, so Kemba should have made sure he had a few more shots.

Thought Kemba looked pretty good in the first half against the Knicks, but he played 40 minutes at PG and had two assists -- and it wasn't bad luck, he went through stretches where he wasn't running anything at all. Would rather see him set some people up who miss than continue to chuck and shoot 35 percent all year.

He split the defense just now and could have done any number of things to find a teammate, and he shoots a 10-foot airball. He has three assists today and is 4-18. He's not getting better playing like this.

 

[caw]

Charlotte is a bad squad at full strength and they are missing their starting 1-2-3.

They are playing Matt Carroll extended minutes in an NBA game next to Byron Mullens, Tyrus Thomas, and Derrick Brown. Their bench consists of a fat Boris Diaw, Corry Higgins, DJ White, Bismark Biyombo and an old Eduardo Najera.

They have an NBDL team in the NBA right now. Don't get me wrong, Kemba has played poorly, but he has maybe 1 legit NBA player playing with him tonight.

 

[SlicinNDyson11]

He's still learning to play the point i find his game very comparable to Brandon Jennings which by no means is a bad thing if you've seen what Jennings is doing this season. Both players are shoot first point guards with streaky three point shots, agreed Kemba needs to look for others more often but he is what he is.

 

[Gurleyman]

Yeah - I didn't figure they were going to win with the line-up they had. I was just looking for some signs that he's showing that he's ready to run the team - he's basically had three full games running the show and he hasn't looked good at the point in any of them (he looked good as a scorer against the Knicks for the first half).

The trouble is that these auditions still make a difference - the Bobcats front office is evaluating everything and thinking long term about whether they should deal Augustin. I could be over-reacting, but I am a little skittish about the "eye test" at the moment.

 

[SlicinNDyson11]

Don't worry too much Kemba will be the starter next season, Bobcats management has never been high on Augustin. I can't tell you why i actually think he's a pretty solid pg and an excellent shooter, but if Augustin's a Bobcat next year id be very surprised. Gotta remember it's early in Kemba's career management won't make any real judgements on him until his 3rd year, they want Kemba to be the guy to run the team. His minutes have gone up as the season has progressed(before injuries of course) which is a good sign for now he's a spark for scoring i think the getting others involved will come along eventually for Kemba.

 

[UConn990411]

He's had a chance to step up with D.J. Augustin out the last three games, and it is not going well. Today's game is brutal - down 48-28 at the half to Washington, as Kemba is 4-15 and the other four starters have a combined 11 shot attempts.

Kemba's been bad since Augustin's injury, but holy hell you overreact to every bad game he has.

First off, the NBA is a long, 82-game season with 3-4 games a week - guys are gonna have bad games. Add that to the fact Kemba's a rookie and there was no training camp (shooting percentages are down across the league, probably because of that) and it's still way too early to read much into these numbers.

Talk to me a month from now if he's still having these woeful shooting nights.

 

[Fishy]

He's had a chance to step up with D.J. Augustin out the last three games, and it is not going well. Today's game is brutal - down 48-28 at the half to Washington, as Kemba is 4-15 and the other four starters have a combined 11 shot attempts.

You are a terrible, terrible, terrible person. Terrible.

If it is any consolation, Kemba was just as bad, but much more efficient in the second half - he only missed four shots.

That is just a terrible basketball team. Not as terrible as you are as a person, but terrible nonetheless.

 

[champs99and04]

Relax, relax...he's a rookie. He's still learning how to play. Remember his first two years in college? Completely out of control, taking a lot of bad shots, turning it over, figuring out how to run an offense, etc. We have to wait until at least his third year to judge him.

 

[Gurleyman]

Truthfully, my analytical (as opposed to frustrated in the middle of game) observation with him right now is that when he tries to be the point guard and thinks "I need to run some offense", he plays passively and isn't doing anything to help his teammates get better looks. When he attacks, he only looks to score. He has to blend those two together - attack and look to pass. Or run some offense and then attack when the defense is off-balance and get your shots in the flow of the game. Hopefully that will come with time as he gets more comfortable with everything. His best weapon is his quickness, but he needs to still see the whole floor while he's using it.

I am being impatient, I know. Wasn't expecting him to shoot a great percentage this year, but was hoping he'd push Augustin a little more - and this brief audition with D.J. out had me anxious as to how well he'd do. But you're right - it may take him until next year to settle in and complete the transition process.

 

[Fishy]

Honestly, it is like having Pol Pot posting on the board. Terrible, terrible person saying terrible, terrible things about Kemba. Terrible.

 

[Gurleyman]

In fairness, I was working on that one before your post went through and didn't see it. I might have hit 'delete' and let you have the last word.

Kemba can end his NBA career tomorrow and go teach English to Cambodian school children -- and I'd still write epic folk songs in his honor about his basketball career (if I had any musical talent). For example, I can't come up with a good rhyme for "a banner suspends from the ceiling in Gampel."

 

[gwhuskyfan]

I was at the game tonight. Not a real great performance by Kemba. The players around him are really not that good. In my opinion, I thought he didn't take as much control of the game when he had the ball as he should've. He really passed the ball around a lot and didn't take as many shots/drive to the basket as he should've. He showed he has the speed to drive past any player defending him on the Wizards and if he penetrated inside more I think his numbers would've been better. Should be interesting to see how he progresses the rest of this year

 

[mets1090]

 

[61cygni]

Hope he's not getting the Shabazz-treatment on the Bobcats forums.​

 

[GavinEdreamy]

Hope he's not getting the Shabazz-treatment on the Bobcats forums.​

I don't think they have enough fans to make a forum. Their biggest fans are us, who only paid / pay attention to them because they drafted Emeka and we wanted to see how he was doing, and now they've drafted Kemba and we want to watch his progress. Other than that, I'm not sure a lot of people know the team exists.

 

[Kitaman]

Uhhhhh .................................................. is this the same Kemba Walker that's a rookie having had a limited player's camp this season?

 

[Palatine]

I actually watched the game.

Charlotte got killed on the boards, both offensively and defensively. IN the first quarter Washington had 10 second chance points and Charlotte had none. They got muscled badly inside. Washington blocked or altered everything in the paint. That decided the game. If Kemba played out of his mind, Charlotte would have still lost.

BTW, it's almost impossible to count the number of times Kemba hit a teammate inside and the pass was fumbled or the shot was blocked or missed.

 

[pepband99]

http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2030

When you're in the conversation, you can't blame Kemba.

 

[ihatepants]

it's tough to see Kemba struggle, when other rookies seem to be doing just fine.

 

[3rdbass]

Well from what I have seen KW has struggled with his shot but he has been playing decent. I think being on a team with no real NBA talent makes it hard for him as there is nobody to take the load. At least when DJ is there he has someone who is at his level. You look at Charlotte's roster and you wonder how can anyone assemble this bad of a team. I mean besides KW DJ and maybe DH who are the best players. White, MC or TT or BD? Yikes that is some horrible talent for an NBA team.

 

[tykurez]

it's tough to see Kemba struggle, when other rookies seem to be doing just fine.

If it's any consolation, The Jimmer is struggling as well ... perhaps even more.

There are two huge forces at play here that were out of Kemba's control.
1) He was drafted by the Bobcats.
2) He was drafted in a lockout shortened season w/ no summer league.

 

[aceboon]

Charlotte needs to keep losing, the higher the draft pick the better. Ideally, I would like to see Kemba play well while the team loses but yea he has definitely been struggling with his shot and knowing when to pass. He's actually getting good looks and getting where he needs to be on the floor to get his shot off, just hasn't been knocking them down.