ESPN's Kendrick Perkins was dumbfounded after seeing Los Angeles Lakers star Russell Westbrook fall behind Ben Simmons in their latest Top 100 rankings. After initially revealing ranks 100-51, ESPN went on to enumerate who they feel should be ranked 50-26 for the upcoming '21-22 NBA season and Perkins wasn't happy seeing the former MVP place a notch above the disgruntled Philadelphia 76ers star. Westbrook was ranked #29 while Simmons was ranked #28.

“First of all, Cassidy, I wanna know who the hell are doing these rankings?” Perkins opened (via NBA on ESPN). “How could you watch last season and watch what Russell Westbrook did when the Washington Wizards were about 1500 games below 500 and Russell Westbrook averaging another triple-double [season], getting them to the postseason and then you have the audacity of putting Ben Simmons ahead of Russell Westbrook. This man keeps getting disrespected,”

In fairness to the former NBA champion, he was praising the Lakers star more than he was roasting Simmons which can easily be misconstrued. Just looking at the stats, one would definitely agree with Perkins' take. Westbrook had a fantastic campaign in his lone season with the Wizards averaging a triple-double for the fourth time in his NBA career while Simmons, on the other hand, had one of his worst (if not his worst) seasons.

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“And that's no disrespect to Ben Simmons,” Perk added. “I think he's a great player. He just wasn't good last year and Russell Westbrook was,”

As the former Boston Celtics mentioned, the amount of disrespect Westbrook has been getting has been crazy. One way or another, people seem to find a way to throw some shade towards Russ' name despite clearly proving in his time in the league that he's one of the best point guards in this modern era.

Fortunately, Russell Westbrook could not care any less of what other people think. He just goes out there and balls night in and night out.