As Kemba Walker hoisted 3-pointers before his pre-draft workout with the Charlotte Bobcats, he turned to Stephen Silas, then a Bobcats assistant, with a lament: "Man, this line is far," Walker said of the NBA arc, according to both men.
Walker did not shine in shooting drills that day. "That jumper," Silas says, "was crooked."
The Bobcats (now called the Hornets) took him anyway, banking on his history of winning and a personality that drew others to him. "He had that 'It' factor," says Rich Cho, Charlotte's GM from 2011 to 2018.