gotemcoach:

KENDRICK PERKINS IS A MAN

I don’t like to just cut and paste stuff here, but this is just a phenomenal piece on Kendrick Perkins.  He says all the right things, and if he had never been a Celtic, he’d be in my Top 10 players in the league. 

Oklahoma City Thunder center Kendrick Perkins has seen the replays of Blake Griffin dunking on him. He’s also read all the Twitter buzz about what is being called one of the greatest slams in NBA history.

But if Griffin challenges him again, Perkins doesn’t plan to run for cover.

“If I was in the same position, in the same rotation, I’m going to jump again and again and again,” Perkins told Yahoo! Sports. “I don’t care. A lot of people are afraid of humiliation or don’t know how to handle embarrassment or would even get embarrassed. I don’t care.

Every franchise needs a Kendrick Perkins.  Every one of them.

“That’s my job. How will my teammates look at me if next time I just back out the way and just let him dunk when I’m supposed to be defensive-minded, a shot-blocker? That would be a coward move on me. He’d just have to dunk on me again.”

That’s exactly right.  Everything he’s saying is exactly right.

Perkins respected Griffin for not making a spectacle of the dunk afterward or gloating about it. But he wasn’t too appreciative of LeBron James tweeting praise to Griffin.

Several NBA players commented about the dunk on Twitter and in media interviews, but the only one that bothered Perkins was James.

Shortly after the dunk, James tweeted, “Dunk of the Year! @blakegriffin just dunked on Kendrick Perkins so hard!!! Wow! I guess I’m No. 2 now. Move over #6.” James was referring to his alley-oop dunk he threw down after jumping over Chicago Bulls guard John Lucas III a day earlier.

“You don’t see Kobe [Bryant] tweeting,” Perkins said. “You don’t see Michael Jordan tweeting. If you’re an elite player, plays like that don’t excite you. At the end of the day, the guys who are playing for the right reasons who are trying to win championships are not worrying about one play.

“They also are not tweeting about themselves talking about going down to No. 2. I just feel [James] is always looking for attention and he wants the world to like him.”

I mean, what are you disagreeing with?  Anything?  He owned up to the dunk, said he doesn’t care, said he’d do it again and again, said he owes it to his team, said Blake didn’t show him up (which he didn’t, other than detonating a bomb on his head), and said any players that tweeted about it are whack because the greats don’t gloat about that stuff.

He’s absolutely right.  Everything. 

@gotem_coach