Former NBA player turned basketball analyst Kendrick Perkins committed to his newfound career path by sacrificing his relationships with his former teammates in exchange for blunt opinions on talk shows.
However, it seemed that Perkins had no problem jeopardizing whatever relationship he and Oklahoma City Thunder teammate Kevin Durant had before.
“I’m still cool with all my friends, everybody from the NBA family I still could call, I still go to dinner with, I still hang with, we still good people. They know I got a job to do. Except for one person. That’s Kevin Durant.” he said to Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated. “So guess what? That tells me that I’m doing my job well and I’m staying loyal to my brotherhood. Especially the people that I know. Only sensitive guys get mad because you got to talk about them in the media.”
Kendrick Perkins’ approach to his job as an NBA analyst had him stirring the pot by previously calling Durant’s decision to sign with the Golden State Warriors “the weakest move in NBA history.”
“It wasn’t nothing personal I was going at KD about,” he said. “For him to try to come at me on Twitter, basically saying that I shouldn’t be able to talk basketball because I averaged two points, three rebounds. He knows what I brought to that Oklahoma City team. I’m not about to get all the way back and forth with it, but don’t act like I was just out there passing the ball either.”
The two also had an online feud on Twitter where Durant famously attacked Perkins for his skills on the court and questioned his contributions during their time together as teammates on the Thunder.
Knowing the type of personality that Durant is, he will also not care whether he burns bridges caused by the statements made by Perkins. Hopefully, the two former teammates will get to make amends and talk over their differences sometime in the future.