The criticism of Kendrick Perkins should match the near-criminal intent of his actions Friday night, so here it is.
Perkins is a goon, and doesn't deserve to be in the NBA. The journeyman center, stealing money by passing himself off as a serviceable end-of-the-bench player for the Pelicans, hauled off and clotheslined Damian Lillard for absolutely no reason. He was immediately hit with a Flagrant-2 and ejected from the game. Surely, a hefty fine and suspension will follow.
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Kendrick Perkins tried to bring the WWE to the NBA....😐https://t.co/aWUUsH2hUQ
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 19, 2016
That's inexcusably egregious, and it reeks of a player past his prime, resorting to barbaric tactics to have any impact on the game. Let's keep it all the way 100: Perkins has never had a prime. He does this crap because he knows, in the context of an NBA game, he can get away with it. If you pull a stunt like that at any park or YMCA in the U-S-of-A, you're going to have to knuckle up. All he has to do is act like he's about that life.
Perkins (2 ppg, 3 rpg), who's averaged double-figures in scoring just once and is in the midst of the worst season of his 12-year career, is fully aware he won't get any retaliation.
Lillard is an All-Star. Who cares how the coaches vote turned out? If it weren't for Stephen Curry, one could make a strong argument that the Weber State product is the MVP. He has the Blazers (36-34) sitting at sixth in the rough-and-tumble Western Conference playoff standings after they lost both Wesley Matthews and LaMarcus Aldridge to free agency. Props to Lillard (25.7 ppg, 6.9 apg, 4.2 rpg) for exhibiting the restraint of Jesus.
He's far, far too valuable to let a worthless player on the dead-in-the-water Pelicans (25-43) get him out of character, draw a technical foul or two and put a victory his team desperately needs in jeopardy.
It's a Grade A sucker stuff.
Like Kevin Durant once said of Chris Bosh (albeit inaccurately), 'There's a lot of fake tough guys in this league, and he's one of them.'
For the record, Lillard finished with a game-high 33 points to go along with six assists and eight rebounds to guide his team to a 117-112 win on the road.