The evolution of Kemba Walker: how he's adjusting to a more complementary role

I’m going to show you Kemba Walker’s last three shot charts. See if you can find anything unusual about them. 



 





Did you see it? 

Since the All-Break, we’ve seen a different Kemba Walker. As the Celtics get whole and build some more continuity, and as the Celtics begin to move the ball better and play off one another, Walker is adjusting his game to fit the flow of the offense. 

Part of that is shown in those shot charts. 

Walker was 2-5 on corner 3-pointers on the road trip. The five corner 3’s that he took equals one-third of the total corner 3’s he’s taken in 36 games this entire season. And of the 15 corner 3’s he’s taken, 12 have come since the All-Star break and 7 have come this month. 

Walker is historically a pick-and-roll ball handler. The Celtics still, obviously, use him in that role quite a bit as his ability to hit pull-up jumpers is a big weapon against drop coverage (when a big man drops back to protect the paint). However, this year, the Celtics have taken to running a lot more pick-and-roll with Jayson Tatum.

NBA Tracking data shows Tatum is being used as the pick-and-roll ballhandler 29.6% of the time this season, a 4% increase from last season and nearly double the frequency from two years ago. Add to that an increase of 2.3% for Jaylen Brown from last season, and a similar bump from Marcus Smart, and Walker is starting to see a little drop in how often he's running that play at the top of the key.

It's a minor drop, but it's happening. He's dropped from 9.8 to 9.2 possessions per game as the pick-and-roll ball handler, and his number possessions as a spot up shooter have gone up from 2 to 2.8. It's a trend that has been more noticeable recently as the Celtics get more used to playing with each other.

"It sure helps when we have more bodies healthy. I don’t think it’s brain surgery," Brad Stevens said after the win in Portland. "I think we’ve got guys that have now played a little bit together, getting in a rhythm together. We mentioned the tweaks in shot profile, the tweaks in offense, but it’s more about the mindset of getting downhill and trying to make the next right play whether for yourself or your teammate ... when Smart, Jaylen, Jayson and Kemba are all out there, you know, of course we’re going to look a little different.”

Here's an example from last night.



The Celtics run a handoff into a stagger screen for Brown. As the Lakers send two to Brown, Tristan Thompson rolls to the middle and into a bunch of unoccupied space. Tatum has two options, but seeing as Dennis Schroder and Marc Gasol are reacting to the roll man (which Tatum helps sell with the dribble), Walker is left wide open in the corner.

Running the play for Brown in this situation takes advantage of a defensive strategy meant for Walker, which is to blitz the pick-and-roll ballhandler. But because it's Brown, who is taller, it's not really as effective (also, this isn't exactly good defense). Brown's step away from the double team helps draw them out just one extra tick, and because Brown, Smart, and Tatum are all involved in the initial action, the Celtics need Walker to be a spacer in the corner. If Shroeder stuck closer to Walker,  Tatum would have just looped a pass to Thompson for the dunk.

Walker is also becoming more of a distributor. He was averaging 4.6 assists before the break, but is up to 5.8 after and 7 in April. In fact, he hasn't had fewer than 6 assists in a game since the March 29 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. He's also up to 9 potential assists per game in April, nearly one more than his pre-break averages.

More importantly, it's the types of shots he's generating. He's generating 17.7 points per game on his assists this month, a 5 point jump from his overall season average and 6.7 more points per game than his pre-break average. So, in total, Walker was accounting for 29.5 Celtics points before the break, but 32.1 this month while taking 3 fewer shots per game.

Walker is dropping some of his dimes in the traditional fashion, hitting rolling bigs off pick-and-rolls. But he's also using his gravity in the corner and moving the ball quickly. The better ball movement is leading to more in-rhythm 3-pointers, which are more likely to fall.



Or, when team's aren't trapping the ball handler, Walker can start in the corner like the earlier play and see if he can turn the corner and see what happens.



It's an easy blow-by with Enes Kanter on the floor. The paint touch combined with the Robert Williams roll sucks in all five Blazers defenders. Still, Walker delivers a beauty of a pass to a wide open Tatum in the corner, who drills it.

Walker has caught a lot of grief this season, but as it's playing out with a healthy squad, more playing time together, and a little more bounce in his knee, it's becoming obvious that Walker is adjusting his game a bit to better fit alongside Tatum and Brown offensively. As he ages and he starts to lose a little zip, becoming a spot-up shooter who can attack closeouts and move the ball can be an important evolution to his game.