Kemba Walker’s tenure in Boston was pretty short-lived. After just 99 games with the franchise, he was sent to OKC for Al Horford, Moses Brown, and a 2023 second-round pick.
He has struggled to return to All-Star form of late, and there are many questions about whether or not he will ever reach that status again. At 31-years-old there should still be years of greatness ahead.
But, apparently, Kemba also gave up a ton of money in his buyout agreement with the Thunder, perhaps showing his motivation at this stage of his career.
(via Keith Smith)
Kemba Walker gave up $20M total in his buyout/waiver with the Oklahoma City Thunder, sources tell @spotrac. Walker gave up $9,777,778 in 2021-22 and $10,222,222 in 2022-23.
Reminder about set-off (the process where some of the player’s next contract comes off the previous contract’s amount): It’s not automatically in every buyout/waiver. In addition, set-off is not applied until after the season completes. So, no further cap relief for OKC in 21-22.
Kemba Walker gave up $20M total in his buyout/waiver with the Oklahoma City Thunder, sources tell @spotrac.
Walker gave up $9,777,778 in 2021-22 and $10,222,222 in 2022-23.
— Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) August 9, 2021
Kemba Walker signed a four-year, $141 million deal with Boston in 2019 — a fitting contract in the aftermath of an All-Star campaign for the veteran guard.
But after the Celtics’ failures over the past two years, the team ultimately decided to head in a new direction.
They dumped Walker and his contract to the rebuilding Thunder, obviously no place for a guy looking to win a title.
A buy-out was seemingly inevitable for Walker, but nobody imagined he’d leave so much on the table.
Now in New York, Kemba is tasked with ushering in a new era for the Knicks. Hopefully, it reaps a lot of success.
Kemba, a 19-point-per-game career scorer, will join Julius Randle, RJ Barrett, and Derrick Rose with hopes of continuing the momentum the franchise picked up last season.
Many questions and doubts are still hovering around KKemba and his future. Can he be the star New York needs him to be? Will he get the chance to make back some of the money he lost?
Much remains to be seen, but he sacrificed a lot of money to end up with the Knicks, so he’s clearly committed to what they’re doing.
