In his bid to highlight Joel Embiid's MVP case, former NBA big man Kendrick Perkins has accused Denver Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic of stat-padding.
Perkins made his opinion on Jokic abundantly clear in his recent appearance on ESPN's First Take, noting that it's clear to him that the Nuggets center is trying hard to increase his assists to average a triple-double. He then mentioned Russell Westbrook and how the explosive guard was ridiculed for stat-padding by going for rebounds, adding that people should keep the same energy on Jokic.
Big Perk argued that when Jokic realized he is close to averaging a triple-double if he increases his assist number, he started to pass more and searching for those dimes.
Nikola Jokic is currently averaging 24.8 points, 11.7 rebounds and 10.0 assists.
Here's Perkins basically accusing Jokic of stat-padding (around 12:00 mark):
It is clear Kendrick Perkins wants to see Joel Embiid win, and to be fair to him, the Philadelphia 76ers big man has a case for it. After all, the Sixers are Top 3 in the East and well poised to contend for the title.
However, the problem with Perkins' take is that he can't compare Nikola Jokic to Russell Westbrook and say he's stat-padding. For one, Jokic has powered the Nuggets to the top of the West, meaning what the Joker is doing is making a massive impact on the team. That contradicts what stat-padders do, as they only focus on getting big and inflated numbers instead of winning.
Furthermore as ex-NBA sharpshooter JJ Redick shared, Jokic is not forcing anything unlike the usual stat-padders who do unnatural looking plays. The Serbian star just always opts for the best plays.
Sure enough, Perkins put himself in a position to receive plenty of backlash with his take. It would have been different if the Nuggets were losing while Jokic is putting up big numbers, but that's not the case. Now, it only looks like he's trying to put Jokic down to lift Embiid.