Kemba Walker Traded To Oklahoma City, Al Horford Headed Back To Boston: What Does This Mean For Both Teams?

Woj Bomb Alert! Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported that Kemba Walker, the Boston Celtic’s first-round pick this year and a 2025 second-round pick have been traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Al Horford, Moses Brown and a 2023 second-round pick.

Why This Matters For The Boston Celtics: The Celtics signed Walker to a max four-year, $141 million contract with the hope of getting the All-Star caliber player he was with the Charlotte Hornets. Walker was supposed to complete the Celtics’ core of Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart and vault the team to another NBA championship.

Unfortunately, due to injuries and a lot of other things, Walker never was able to replicate his great play from the Hornets.

In return for Walker, the Celtics receive Horford, who played for the team from 2016 to 2018, and Brown, a 21-year-old center who looked promising in 43 games for the Thunder last season.

The Celtics will look for its All-Star duo of Tatum and Brown to lead the team to replicate the franchise’s past glory.

This is the first move new Basketball Operations President Brad Stevens has made for the Celtics.

Why This Matters For The Oklahoma City Thunder: The Thunder continues its rebuild by acquiring even more picks, taking the Philadelphia 76ers’ “Process” and injecting it with steroids. The team now has a whopping 35 draft picks from 2021 to 2027.

It's interesting to see the Thunder trade away a solid young center in Brown, but it looks like he wasn’t part of the team's future plans with young stud Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

Walker only has two more years left on his contract before he hits the market again.

(Photo: Keith Allison from Hanover, Md. via Wikimedia Commons)