Are the Celtics ready for the Kemba revenge game?

Ex-Celtics guard Kemba Walker will face his old team for the first time after being traded to Oklahoma City, which ultimately led him back to playing for his hometown team, the New York Knicks.

NEW YORK -- You can dig, poke and prod all you like around the NBA and you will not find a single person who will speak ill of Kemba Walker.

There are few players that have his talent and are so universally liked by all.

But the Kind-as-can-be Kemba Walker that so many love, can easily transform into a shot-making assassin on the basketball court.

Look for the latter to show up on Wednesday night when Walker faces his old team, the Boston Celtics, for the first time since Boston traded him to Oklahoma City which led to a buyout and the Bronx, New York native eventually signing with his hometown team, the New York Knicks.

Walker, speaking to the media on the eve of Wednesday night’s season opener against Boston, said all the right things about his former teammates and the Celtics organization as a whole.

“I had a great time,” he said when asked about his Boston experience. “I had great teammates; went to Eastern Conference Finals (in 2020); made some great friends. It was a great time, I loved it.”

But don’t be fooled.

That loveable Kemba Walker wants nothing more than to do what he has done so many times in Madison Square Garden, which is to inflict the basketball carnage teams in the Big East know all too well from Walker’s time at UConn when he led the Huskies to a national championship in 2011.

“I don't go into anything thinking I'm gonna lose,” Walker said. “I definitely want to win.”

The feeling is mutual for the Celtics, albeit they open the season with a tougher degree of difficulty when it comes to winning games.

All-Stars Jaylen Brown and Al Horford both tested positive for COVID-19 this month, and have spent a large chunk of training camp in isolation. Brown is the more likely of the two to be in the Celtics’ opening night lineup, while Horford who tested positive shortly after Brown, is likely to be out for the opener.

Indeed, there’s no shortage of storylines for this game.

But there is none bigger than Walker facing his former team, a team that basically signed Walker on the rebound in 2019 after Kyrie Irving signed with the Brooklyn Nets and the Charlotte Hornets had no interest in re-signing Walker to anything close to his value.

So in swooped the Celtics to sign Walker to a four-year, $141 million contract.

Despite being as reliable as the sun rising when he was in Charlotte, Walker’s time in Boston will be remembered more for the high number of games he missed than those he showed up for and played well in.

In his two seasons with the Celtics, Walker missed a total of 45 games. In his final four seasons in Charlotte before arriving in Boston, he missed a total of just six games.

Having his legacy stained by an injury-riddled couple of seasons in Boston, doesn’t take away from one of the league’s most likeable guys and top scorers.

The eighth overall pick in the 2011 NBA draft, Walker’s 23,718 points scored is tops among all players in his draft class which includes perennial All-Star Kyrie Irving, Jimmy Butler and two-time NBA champion Kawhi Leonard.

New York Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau heard all the stories from friends and players who had been around Walker, about how awesome a person he was.

“Sometimes you sit there and think, ‘it can’t all be true,’” Thibodeau said. “And then you get around him, and it is true.”

And while there will surely be pleasantries before and after Wednesday night’s game, the Celtics won’t be lulled into taking it easy on nice-guy Kemba who will have no problem transforming from kill ‘em with kindness Kemba, to a basketball assassin whose mission is clear: Beat the Celtics.