BONUS Newsletter: Kemba Walker OUT of NY's Rotation

Emergency newsletter time

Before we get into the nitty gritty of the stunning news (well, stunning to me at least…long overdue for others) that Kemba Walker has not only been demoted as New York’s starter but is now out of the rotation entirely, let’s take a step back and look at the big picture.

Ian Begley @IanBegley

Tom Thibodeau says, at the moment, PG Kemba Walker is not part of the NYK rotation. Says he views Walker as a starter & doesn’t see good fit for Walker off bench. “I have great respect for who Kemba is as a person… & all he's accomplished in this league."

This organization has acquired a lot of over the hill “stars” in the past. It’s kind of been their thing for much of their history. The Walker signing - for two years and $18 million after he was bought out by the Oklahoma City Thunder - was not billed as such.

Yes, the introductory presser for Kemba was also the formal introduction of Evan Fournier, but something tells me that if it was just Fournier being announced, it would not have been on the floor of MSG, with Fat Joe in attendance, and filled with as much pomp and circumstance as any player acquisition in recent memory.

This was made out to be a big deal, both for the need that Walker would supposedly fill and the roots he came from, a New York City point guard through and through. Had “Coming Home” not already been used on the return of another local product a few years earlier, it surely would have been the theme of this homecoming as well.

So for all that to fall by the wayside a quarter of the way into a season in which the Knicks have a winning record (as opposed to, say, the woeful 7-13 start to the 2011-12 season that eventually bred Linsanity, or the disastrous 5-15 beginning of the 2013-14 campaign, both of which began with significant expectations), yes, the move counts as a stunner.