And here’s the thing about Kendrick Perkins: He’s really, really good at his job. Genuinely entertaining. With his thick southern drawl, there’s a charming gruffness to his on-air personality. He’s like a Muppet. When his one-liners land (“[Marcus Smart is] out there serving the ball like an old lady on Good Friday at the Catholic church serving fish dinners”), his co-anchors lose it. Perkins has earned his way to stardom at ESPN.
Unlike some of his peers, he’s actually rigorous about his research. Perkins typically spends his evenings watching all the games. Then he wakes up at five, five thirty the next morning, sips a grande hot white mocha with whipped cream from Starbucks, checks his notes with his producers, and starts thinking about what topics he’d like to tackle that day.
“Is it one of those times where I’m about to add some funny stuff and put some charisma to it?” says Perkins of his process. “Or is it a serious matter where I’m going to shake the world up and start some beef?”
Perkins often praises players on air too, though those clips don’t gain nearly the same traction. He does admit, though, that sometimes when a young player gets upset with him, it can give him pause. “It’s hard,” says Perkins, “but I don’t care. I mean, they’ll get over it! It ain’t nothing personal. Sometimes I do stir the pot. The thing is that I got a job to do.”
Things can get especially awkward when he gets into it with someone like Durant, whom he played with for five seasons in Oklahoma City. The most egregious back-and-forth happened back in 2020. Kyrie Irving, who initially supported restarting the season in the bubble, changed his mind and said that players should instead focus on the fight for racial justice.
Perkins questioned Kyrie on ESPN and said he was showing a “lack of leadership.” Durant, who might have the itchiest Twitter fingers of any player in history, immediately called Perkins a “sell out” and tweeted a video of the big man airballing a jumper.
Aside from Green’s podcast rant, for which he later apologized, Perkins considers KD’s barb one of the rare instances where he felt like a line was crossed. The two former teammates stopped talking, and it was months before they started texting again.
“Me and KD are still cool. I’m going to get on his ass, and I’m still going to be the first person to acknowledge his greatness,” says Perkins. “We have a love-hate relationship. We might hear from each other every month. It might be a fuck you, fuck you, how’s the family, everything good? And then he’ll say, ‘You’re full of shit for saying that on TV,” and I’m like, ‘Okay cool, whatever motherfucker, I’m doing my job.’ Then we won’t talk for two months.”
“It’s all love,” Durant adds. “I don’t take this stuff that seriously.”
In NBA media, at least, time is the flattest kind of circle.
Take the one of the latest players to sign a deal with TNT to become a talking head: Draymond Green, who will be joining Chuck, Shaq, and Kenny as a player-slash-panelist on Inside the NBA.
Alex Wong is the author of Cover Story: The NBA and Modern Basketball as Told Through Its Most Iconic Magazine Covers and the co-host of The Raptors Show podcast. He lives in Toronto.
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