Boston Celtics Kemba Walker ready to be himself with new team as new season begins

Kemba Walker, Daniel Thies, Gordon Hayward

Boston Celtics' Kemba Walker (8), Daniel Theis (27) and Gordon Hayward (20) play against the Cleveland Cavaliers during the first half of an NBA preseason basketball game in Boston, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)AP

PHILADELPHIA -- There’s a tendency for people who either visit or are new to New York City to walk around looking up. There are just so many tall buildings. There’s so much to take in. Everywhere they turn, there’s something new that causes them to look up.

It drives native New Yorkers crazy, but maybe Bronx-born Kemba Walker can understand the fascination with newness a little more now that he’s in Boston.

Everything has been new for Walker so far, and tonight is no different. His team is on national TV on opening night. There’s a level of excitement for this game that just hasn’t existed in the regular season for Walker. One might think this situation is tailor made for trying to do too much, but Walker says it’s actually the opposite.

“It’s easy to be passive in a new situation, trying to get guys to like you,” Walker said at the team’s morning shoot around. “But at the same time I have to be myself – they brought me here for a reason – and I have to find that balance. That’s probably the biggest adjustment – Brad, the core guys like Jayson, Gordon, Jaylen, Smart. The ones telling me to stop being passive, and go out and do what I did in Charlotte, and that’s good to hear.”

Being yourself is a tenet of Stevens’ philosophy. He likes to use phrases like “soar with your strengths” and “be the best version of yourself” to encourage players to maximize their abilities and let the coaching staff figure out how to handle the rest.

“We’ve been really lucky here and we’ve got another really good point guard and we’ve got to make sure that we do our best to get everybody to play at their best,” Stevens said. “I think he looks like he feels more and more comfortable every day.”

A lot has been said about his time in China with Marcus Smart, Jayson Tatum, and Jaylen Brown, but he has other teammates, and they’ve been impressed by how he’s looked in training camp.

I’ve known what kind of a player Kemba is for a while,” Gordon Hayward wrote on the Player’s Tribune. “But now seeing him do his thing up-close, as a teammate? I’ve been blown away. The guy can basically get to anywhere on the court, at will. And he finishes with this confidence that’s unreal... it’s hard to explain, but what Kemba is able to do around the basket is unique.”

Walker getting to the basket and finishing around the rim is so… Charlotte. If there’s one aspect to Walker’s game that will be as new as his city and situation, it’s that he’s excited to let other people do some of the heavy lifting on offense.

“These guys are great basketball players and we all want to make the right plays,” he said. “I’m not a selfish guy at heart anyway, and neither are these guys. They always make the extra pass. Always make the right play. And if they don’t you have to know they didn’t do it on purpose.”

In a few hours, Walker will stop looking up at all the newness. It’s time to put his head down and get to work running the Boston Celtics on the floor. The saccharin sweetness of the preseason will finally be mixed with some bitter reality. Nothing has gone wrong for Boston yet, but, just like it does with every team, something inevitably will.

It’s then that he and his relationships will be tested. The classic Mike Tyson line “everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face” has a strong possibility of applying very quickly for Walker and the Celtics.

Walker, for one, seems confident things will work.

“My relationship with pretty much everyone around the organization has just been getting better – especially with my teammates, which is the most important,” he said. “We’ve done some things to pull together, like bonding. Hopefully it translates on the court.”

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