The AS Monaco guard chats with Joe Arlauckas about growing up in New York, starring in the NBA and playing in the EuroLeague.
Kemba Walker visits The Crossover
Podcast
4 Mins read
The Crossover with Joe Arlauckas has the biggest stars in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague as its guests every season and no player with a richer resume stepped into Europe’s premier basketball competition over the summer than Kemba Walker of AS Monaco.
The former NCAA champion spent 12 seasons in the NBA, where he was selected to the All-Star team four times and remains the all-time leading scorer in Charlotte Hornets franchise history. Before his rise to stardom, Walker was a New York City kid who loved basketball and honed his skills at the playgrounds. One of the asphalt courts where he started to shine was the famed Rucker Park, which Walker continued to visit even after heading off to college.
11:15 “Streetball, that’s where I started. So I wanted to continue to go out there as much as I could,” Walker reflected on his days playing at Rucker. “It was some good times.”
After starring at Rice High School, where he was a teammate of future EuroLeague player Edgar Sosa, Walker played college basketball at the University of Connecticut. It was there that Walker earned the nickname “Cardiac Kemba” for his buzzer-beating jumper in the quarterfinals of the Big East Tournament.
Walker and UConn continued to make history all the way to winning the 2011 NCAA championship. A few months later, he was drafted by his father’s idol, Michael Jordan, and the Hornets into the NBA.
While he achieved levels of fame and riches that Walker could not have dreamed of as a boy in New York, that was not what drove him to success.
36:15 “My love for the game is what keeps me going. I love to play basketball. It’s what brings me joy. It’s what takes my mind off every single thing that goes on in my life,” Walker told Arlauckas. “It’s what keeps me going, every single day, no matter how hard it is.”
Walker had many European teammates, particularly from France, during his time in the NBA. And when the offer to play for Monaco in the EuroLeague came, Walker was ready for the challenge.
45:30 “I wanted to have a new experience. I wanted to try to experience the world. And it’s really been an easy adjustment,” he explained. “These guys welcomed me with open arms, treated me with a lot of respect. Just really made my transition super easy.
“As someone coming from the States to be here for the first time for quite some time, all you can ask for is to be welcomed in the right way. And that is something that I appreciate a lot from my teammates. These guys are some of the best teammates I’ve ever had. These guys are amazing, I love being around these guys every day. I appreciate every morning knowing that I am coming to practice with these guys… They make it fun.”
More than a third of the way through the regular season, Walker and Monaco are flying high and in the thick of the battle for a top-four finish and home-court advantage in the playoffs. Watching their assault on the EuroLeague crown promises to be one of the most exciting stories to follow in 2024.
With a one-hour format of exclusive one-on-one interviews, The Crossover with Joe Arlauckas goes well beyond the playing court with each podcast to delve into the life experiences that have made his guests protagonists and legends of the EuroLeague. The Crossover debuted in 2018 and has featured such current stars as Mike James, Lorenzo Brown and Mario Hezonja; coaching greats such as Georgios Bartzokas, Dimitris Itoudis, and Zeljko Obradovic, and legends like Theo Papaloukas, Nikola Vujcic and Mike Batiste, among others.
The Crossover with Joe Arlauckas is available on Youtube, iTunes, Audioboom, Spotify, Deezer, RadioPublic, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Stitcher, CastBox, iVoox and other platforms.