"It's Just Not Good": Mavericks Exec Speaks Frankly About Kemba Walker's Knee

It's not the kind of talk you'd expect to hear from the front office of a team that just signed a player, but Dallas Mavericks president of basketball operations Nico Harrison made some pretty frank comments about the troublesome knee of his new backup point guard Kemba Walker:

It’s not good, it’s not good at all. But he’s rehabbed it. And it’s actually the best he’s felt in the last two years, so we’ll see how long that lasts.

Yikes. Not exactly a ringing endorsement. But as Harrison continued to speak about Walker on his appearance on Dallas radio station The Ticket, he tried to clarify that the intent of his comments was really referring to how the knee has wreaked havoc on Kemba's career recently, not how it might be affecting him right now.

"It hasn’t been good for a few years,” Harrison said. “Even last year, he had 30-point games on it. But it actually feels better now. The reality is, if you look at it, it’s just not good. But that doesn’t mean he can’t play on it.”

The Mavs are certainly hoping he can still play on it, as they just signed him to take some of the ballhandling pressure off Luka Doncic, while hopefully adding a bit of bench scoring as well. 

And as Harrison alluded to, Walker has certainly put up some performances on the bad knee, like his 44-point explosion for the New York Knicks less than a year ago.

Kemba finished last season in New York averaging 11.6 points with 3.5 assists in about 25 minutes per game. The Knicks shut him down, however, in late February, and dealt him in a package to the Detroit Pistons over the offseason. He never suited up for Detroit, who eventually waived him. 

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