Charlotte Hornets: Just how good can Kemba Walker be?

Kemba Walker has continued to show improvement every year. The question remains: How much better can he get?

The Charlotte Hornets‘ star point guard posted new career highs in PPG, 3P%, FG%, TS%, and OBPM. Kemba’s offensive explosion in the 2016-2017 NBA season is consistent with the rest of his career, as he has improved in various aspects in each year that he’s been in the league.

Now 27 years old, Walker should be entering his prime and should be exceeding expectations. Let’s look at three aspects of the game and see where Walker should be able to improve.

Scoring

Kemba’s biggest growth last season was his offensive game, improving from 20.9 to 23.2 points per game. Additionally, three-pointers fell at almost 40% for Walker last season. It’d be a bit unfair to expect Kemba to get substantially better at getting buckets this season. If Kemba can maintain this ethereal scoring rate, the Hornets should be in a good place offensive.

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Passing

Kemba posted 5.5 assists last year to 2.1  turnovers. This is not exceptional, but it must be thought of in the context of Steve Clifford’s offensive system. Nick Sciria (one of basketball’s smartest writers) examined Charlotte’s offense beautifully here. He notes how frequently dribble hand-offs are utilized in Steve Clifford’s system, especially by shooters like Batum and Belinelli last season.

This means Kemba Walker has less opportunity to post double digit assist numbers, especially when compared to star point guards like Russell Westbrook and James Harden.  Finally, when considering that the Hornets led the league in fewest turnovers and played at the 11th slowest pace in the league, Walker’s assist numbers are fine.

Defense

Advanced stats cast a more mixed view of Kemba defensively. To become a truly elite point guard, Kemba must step up defensively. Although he is a fine on-ball defender, he has to create more turnovers. He averaged only 1.1 steals per game, a number down from his career high of 2 per game.

Kemba is a truly unstoppable beast in transition with a lethal three point shot, incredible craftiness at the rim, and a nice mid-range pull up to boot. In order to help the Hornets the most, Walker must step it up defensively. If he can continue his level of offensive output consistent and improve defensively, the Hornets can be an elite team.

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Kemba Walker is truly an all-star point guard and plays like one as well. As long as Kemba can continue what he does on the offensive end, the Hornets should be in good hands. If he can manage to force more turnovers per game on the defensive end, we may be looking at a potentially All-NBA caliber season.