Long before memes were popular. Long before Twitter, Facebook and Instagram were popular. We had Employee No. 8, Antoine Walker, his Shimmy celebration and the awesome "Walker Walk" images floating around message boards, chat rooms and Myspace pages.
Before we get a good laugh at the original NBA meme, I do want to give a shout out to the NBA Champion, who is more known now for going broke than for making a lot of fantasy owners money when he was a three-time NBA All-star flirting with triple-doubles on a nightly basis and deserving to be in this photo with Kobe and the GOAT.
Here are a few games from his 2001/02 All-Star season that made me very happy since I had him on my Fantasy team.
- vs Knicks: 42 pts, 9 rebs, 9 asts, 3 stls
- vs Nugs: 30 pts, 12 rebs, 14 asts
- vs Wizards: 31 pts, 10 rebs, 9 asts
- vs Bucks: 29 pts, 17 rebs, 5 asts
- vs Griz: 38 pts, 7 rebs, 6 asts, 4 stls
- vs Lakers: 30 pts, 14 rebs, 10 asts
The one thing that didn't make me happy about having Walker on my Fantasy team was his FG%. The reason why it was so low (.460) is because he was attempting eight threes a game, which tied him with Ray Allen for a league-high. He even averaged 11 shots from downtown during a nine-game stretch, which included a 6-for-17 game! Walker and Allen would lead the league in three-point again the following year and the most shocking thing about that stat is Allen made just .2 more threes than Walker:
Walker: 188-582
Allen: 201-533
T-Mac: 173-448
Walker had so much confidence in his outside shot, he even participated in the 2003 NBA Three-Point contest...and made just six shots.
Reporter: "Why do you shoot so many 3's?"
Antoine Walker: "Because there are no 4's." pic.twitter.com/ANssofcwq0
— ThrowbackHoops (@ThrowbackHoops) June 5, 2019
Now that we got all that out of the way, let's revisit or be introduced to the "Walker walk" meme.
