Walker’s Rollercoaster Campaign Mirrors Nets’ Woes
Nets guard Lonnie Walker IV entered Monday night’s contest at Indiana with about five minutes remaining in the first quarter. True to his designated role as an offensive sparkplug off the bench, Walker’s first touch just three seconds later was hoisted toward the hoop from 27 feet away.
Like most things Nets-related this season, it came up short. The Pacers took off with the rebound and scored an easy bucket in transition to go up by 17 points en route to an easy 133-111 victory.
It was Brooklyn’s second consecutive non-competitive thrashing following a three-game winning streak. The team is now 17-38 since starting the season 12-9 through December 8.
If there is one player whose season has mirrored Brooklyn’s downward spiral, it’s Walker, a veteran minimum free agent pickup last summer. He has been through the same trajectory—the surprising early success, the neverending injuries, and, in the last few months, major league struggles.
Prior Nets Head Coach Jacque Vaughn didn’t include Walker in his opening night rotation but quickly recognized his value when he started draining 3s at abnormal rates. A 34.9% career three-point shooter entering the season, Walker ranked fourth in the league (minimum 75 three-point attempts) in the category on November 30.
For 17 games, Walker had the whole bag going, not just the catch-and-shoots. Per NBA.com, he was 14-for-29 (48.3%) on pull-up 3s and finished at the rim with flares.
Back then, with Walker a way-too-early candidate for the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year Award, it was a no-brainer for the Nets to account for the possibility of bringing him back in 2024-25, even if they had to dip into their mid-level exception to do so. The thinking was that at 25, Walker’s upside potential hadn’t even yet peaked.
But it was that night in Charlotte where Walker, who had previously battled through a knee issue without missing work, suffered a hamstring strain that would keep him out 17 games. The Nets—and Walker—haven’t been the same since. And it has changed everything, on and off the court.
Walker’s numbers prior to the injury, which recurred in February, were a healthy 14.6 points in 21.3 minutes per game on 49% shooting from the field, including 46.3% from three-point territories. The regression to his mean has been steep, especially in March, when he averaged 6.3 points on a 35/30.5/62.5 shooting split. It got so bad that interim HC Kevin Ollie sprinkled a couple of DNP-CDs in there, with several other of Walker’s runs relegated to garbage time.
There are varying explanations for Walker’s performance decline, including the injury effects. If that were solely the case, however, what was he doing playing the meaningless final 12 minutes of a game Brooklyn was down by 30 points to the Pacers, where he padded his stat line with a 14-point quarter?
In a press conference a few weeks ago, Ollie seemed to indicate it was Walker’s deficiencies in other areas that was tethering him to the bench. That’s also hard to believe, because; A) Given this team’s dearth of offensive talent—aside from the outliers every eight games or so where they shoot lights out, scoring is a nightly slog; and B) Has Ollie seen some of the other guys to whom he’s been giving heavy minutes play defense, like Cam Thomas and Trendon Watford (who hustles but can’t stop a nosebleed)?
There’s no doubt in my mind that if Walker were knocking down shots with similar efficiency, Ollie would find the time to get him on the court more. Except when Walker has been getting opportunities, he’s too often been off. Many times, way off.
It has led to a chicken-and-the-egg effect, where Walker probably feels like he can’t get on track without consistent playing time while Ollie needs to trust that he’s back on track in order to grant him playing time.
It’s a dispiriting situation in a dispiriting season. Such travails call for a deep dive into everything, especially roster configuration. Walker may be one small piece in the organization’s puzzle, but whereas once he seemed like a perfect fit, his return has to now be included in the “Up in the air” pile, along with many of his underachieving mates.