Kemba walkin’

The story of Kemba Walker’s free agency took us on quite a journey Thursday. First, The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported there was a financial gap between Kemba’s expectations and the Hornets’ offer, opening the door for other teams. Quickly thereafter, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported the Celtics were the frontrunner for Kemba. Quickly thereafter, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith confirmed that report on air, and said Charlotte had offered Walker just $160 million over five years, about $60 million short of the supermax he is eligible to receive.

Like I said, that’s quite a journey.

Good for the Celtics, who — if this happens — will have signed three top-tier stars in free agency in four years (with Kemba joining Al Horford and Gordon Hayward). Kemba is a wonderful fit in Boston, especially alongside Marcus Smart — there are real Isaiah Thomas revival vibes here.

But the story has to be the Hornets’ total and complete mismanagement of the end of Walker’s contract. It was not a complete surprise that Walker made the All-NBA team, making him eligible for the supermax. Charlotte knew that was a strong possibility back in January and February when staring down the barrel of the end of Walker’s contract. The Hornets’ front office knew Walker could be eligible for $220 million, and the Hornets’ front office probably had a sense of what they were comfortable offering Walker in any case. That’s where the gap — a gap between what Walker could make and what Charlotte would offer — opened up.

And Charlotte just ... let Walker play out the spiraling lottery-bound season with little apparent work to find out if Kemba would truly take $60 million less than he is eligible for and with little apparent work surveying the trade market.

Look at it this way. A few years back, the Kings reasonably suspected DeMarcus Cousins would become eligible for a supermax deal, and the Kings weren’t interested in offering it, and the Kings didn’t want to risk losing Cousins for nothing, so the Kings traded Cousins a year and a half before he hit free agency. The Kings! Not exactly a model franchise, but they saw the writing on the wall and made a move to prevent losing their best asset for nothing.

And now it looks like Kemba is going to walk away, leaving the Hornets empty-handed. Have fun in the LaMelo Ball sweepstakes, y’all.

This is malpractice on part of the Hornets’ front offices former and current, and on the man cutting the checks (or in this case not cutting the checks), Michael Jordan. Fans in Queen City should be completely outraged.

The Celtics are hiring Kara Lawson as an assistant coach, making the former WNBA point guard and very good television analyst for ESPN and the Wizards the eighth woman on NBA staffs. This is a great trend, and there’s something a little spectacular about a storied franchise like the C’s adding a woman to the staff.

This is the nice half of the Lawson story. The underbelly of the story is how long it took for Lawson to get her foot in the door due to how retrograde and self-defeating one particular NBA front office — the Kings under Geoff Petrie, with Rick Adelman as coach — was when Lawson, then with the Sacramento Monarchs, first expressed interest in learning about and working with an NBA team. Howard Megal of High Post Hoops talked to Lawson about the brick wall she met in Sacramento a couple years ago.

My how things have changed. Good for Lawson, good for Boston, and BRING BACK THE MONARCHS.

Deadspin’s Dave McKenna on a part of prominent scout Pete Philo’s history no one has talked or asked about for about 20 years: he was convicted of raping a 15-year-old girl at a boarding school he worked at before getting hired by multiple NBA teams and starting his own successful scouting operation. He spent eight months in county jail. And he just got inducted into a regional sports hall of fame. Outstanding reporting, awful story.

Big news: everybody freaking out about the Lakers’ failure to open up a max free agent slot in the Anthony Davis trade wasted a whole lot of everyone’s time, because LA expanded the deal into a three-teamer to unload their remaining non-Kuzma contracts and convinced Anthony Davis to waive his $4 million trade kicker, which has some folks big mad. I wonder if the Lakers pitched the trade kicker waiver to Davis over a steaming bowl of wabbit stew ... The Lakers are now actually in play for the top-level free agents (Kyrie Irving and Kawhi Leonard are the top targets, and Klay Thompson could be in play if the Warriors don’t offer the max), or have even more space to split up among multiple players. That said, there are three players under contract after the trade.

LeBron James gifted Davis the No. 23 jersey in LA and will return to No. 6. Sounds like a $4 million value ...

Kawhi’s first free agency meetings will be with the Lakers and Clippers.

Nobody knows what’s next for Draymond Green, writes Michael Pina.

Yao Ming’s next big dream.

Wow: the Hornets will not tender Frank Kaminsky a qualifying offer, making The Tank an unrestricted free agent.

Taking a fresh look at the Celtics’ cap situation.

Four players and three teams that can totally shake up free agency.

The biggest sleepers in free agency.

Ricky O’Donnell introduces us to the biggest studs in USA Basketball’s youth pipeline.

Free agency begins Sunday at 6 p.m. ET. Be excellent to each other.