Kendrick Perkins was never very popular among NBA fans. His gritty defense and physicality were good from time to time, but he’s more known for his hot takes and opinions as a former player rather than for actually being an NBA champion.
Perk has been right on point every now and then, but other times… not so much. That was the case with his recent analysis of the MVP race, where he implied that Nikola Jokic would only win the award because voters are racist.
Needless to say, this illogical and blatantly false take raised plenty of controversy, with fellow NBA alumni JJ Redick putting him on blast on live television for even bringing that nonsense to the table.
Kendrick Perkins Implies NBA MVP Voters Are Racist
“There are only three guys who won the MVP who wasn’t top 10 in scoring: Steve Nash, Jokic, and Dirk Nowitzki,” Perkins said on First Take. “Now, what do those guys have in common? I’ll let it sit there and marinate; you think about it.”
Charles Barkley Rips Perkins Over Racist Voters Take
Notably, Redick wasn’t the only former player to call Perkins out. Hall of Famer Charles Barkley went at him at full steam, pointing out how most of the NBA MVP winners— himself included— aren’t white:
“Asinine, silly, and stupid, pick one of the words, whichever one you want,” Barkley said of Perkins’ comments. “Listen, Joker has won 2 MVPs, well deserved. Him, Giannis (Antetokounmpo), and Joel (Embiid) are battling for the 3rd one this year, gonna go down to the wire.”
“You probably can count the white guys on one hand who have won MVP,” Barkley added. “Does he know how many voters there are who are white, actually? Or he just pulled 80% out of his a**? My point is if only five white guys have won MVP in the last 30 years, his argument makes zero sense. Because if that was the case, we’d have a lot more white MVPs if white guys or ladies only gonna vote for white guys for MVP.”
“JJ is the only person who challenged Perk last week (and) I’m glad he did because when I first heard it, I said, ‘Man, this has got to be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard,” Chuck concluded.
It’s hard to take this opinion seriously, all things considered. We’re talking about perhaps the blackest sports product on Earth, so how is this even a topic? I’m sorry, Perk, but you really dropped the ball with this one.