Kendrick Perkins was an offensive liability even before suffering a torn ACL in Game 6 of the 2010 NBA Finals. Further sapped of mobility and overall athleticism for the remainder of his career, the big man was never quite the same, sweeping offensive issues making him almost unplayable as his once-stellar defensive impact waned.
You can't blame Perkins for being close to clueless when it comes to the best offensive players in basketball, basically. He initially made a name for himself with the Boston Celtics on the other side of the floor, never contributing much more when his team had the ball than bone-crushing screens and pounding the offensive glass.
Considering he's now a lead NBA analyst for ESPN, though, you'd hope Perkins would at least have some understanding of who should comprise the list of five best offensive players in basketball. It's safe to say Luka Doncic and Devin Booker wouldn't be pleased with Perkins' personal rankings, aired on Wednesday afternoon. Nikola Jokic definitely wouldn't care, but the reigning NBA Finals MVP probably has the biggest gripe here regardless.
Breaking down the missteps in Kendrick Perkins' ‘big list' of best offensive players
Kevin Durant is perhaps the most gifted scorer of all-time, but there's basically no case for him to top the list of the league's best offensive players in 2023 other than tough shot-making ability and previous reputation. The Phoenix Suns superstar isn't the penetrator he was in his prime, and lags well behind the likes of Jokic, Doncic, LeBron James and even Curry as a playmaker.
Doncic's absence from Big Perk's Big List is an omission so glaring it's almost as if Perkins forgot the Dallas Mavericks franchise player exists. Could Doncic work harder off the ball and do questions exist about his scalability in a less heliocentric offensive system? Absolutely. But he's the single best driver of efficient team-wide offense in the league other than Jokic, not to mention a devastating individual scorer from all three levels of the floor.
Jayson Tatum and Joel Embiid are first-rung MVP candidates once again and truly unstoppable scorers when their jumper is falling. Much of their all-around value comes defensively, though. Tatum and Embiid are the two best defenders in Perkins' top-five.
There's certainly a case to be made that Booker—ruthlessly efficient with his scoring and decisive overall approach in last year's playoffs before being slowed by a foot injury—is a better offensive player than Tatum and Embiid. The same goes for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
But the biggest error here really is having anyone but Jokic atop these rankings after what he did while leading Denver to its first ever championship. He's on track to finish his career with an argument as the best offensive player of all-time, and could win a third MVP this season. Some will include Curry in that debate, and rightfully so. He's been as dominant as ever offensively in the early going of 2023-24, looking a decade younger than 35 years old. Doncic, somehow, might be playing better than both of them over the first two weeks of the regular season.
Needless to say, Kendrick Perkins isn't the best evaluator on ESPN's NBA team. He offers the worldwide leader plenty of other attributes, like creating clicks, views and engagement by spouting misinformed takes like this one. Let's just hope anyone striving to learn about the league doesn't take his actual basketball analysis too seriously.
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