Kendrick Perkins exposed his own double standards with an asinine take about Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokic tonight.
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The Milwaukee Bucks recovered from their win streak being broken Saturday night by the Sixers with a rebound win. They visited Washington DC and took home a 117-111 win from the Capital One Arena.
With former All-Star Khris Middleton still recovering from injury, coach Mike Budenholzer held him out for the back-to-back. Pat Connaughton was included in the starting lineup in his place.
None of the Bucks attempted more than 14 shots on a night when team basketball reigned supreme. Giannis Antetokounmpo took on a facilitating role with aplomb.
The Greek Freak finished with 23 points, 13 assists and 10 rebounds for his 4th triple-double this season. His final rebound was the subject of some controversy as he got it by intentionally missing his own shot.
Giannis just threw himself a rebound at the buzzer to get a triple double.https://t.co/seAh8ChWxh pic.twitter.com/nPgHIPTVAB
— Wobmmanuel Quickley (@WorldWideWob) March 6, 2023
Also Read – Nikola Jokic Trails Only Wilt Chamberlain on Elite Triple-Double List After Nuggets Trounce Grizzlies
Kendrick Perkins contradicts himself by downplaying Giannis’ stat-padding
Kendrick Perkins was one of the primary detractors of Nikola Jokic’s MVP case over the past 2 years. He argued Chris Paul’s case for the 2020-21 season, while he took Embiid’s MVP case last season.
This time, he’s siding with Giannis as his MVP pick. And to throw shade on Jokic’s stupendous play, Perkins resorted to a thoroughly untrue accusation about the Serbian center last week.
Here’s the full clip of Kendrick Perkins saying Jokic is stat padding (2023/02/24) pic.twitter.com/bmYu71QVxb
— tooforwon (@tooforwon241) February 28, 2023
However, he didn’t find anything wrong about Giannis throwing himself a rebound against the Wizards. According to him, ‘every player engages in this at some point’.
Every player has padded their stats at some point during their career. People tried to call me crazy when I said it last week… but hey what do I know! Carry on… https://t.co/j85GxrGt5l
— Kendrick Perkins (@KendrickPerkins) March 6, 2023
NBA Twitter defends Nikola Jokic, blasts Perkins for his hypocrisy
Jokic, who’s a runaway favorite for MVP honors for a third consecutive time, is universally loved by all factions of NBA fandom. Naturally, they came to defend his case in the face of Perkins’ two-faced tweet.
Then why did you go on national tv and call Jokic a stat padder but not anyone else? Seems personal to me.
— Omar Wen (@omarwhen) March 6, 2023
Kendrick Perkins’ take on Nikola Jokic is so bad that it honestly feels like he’s just trolling. He’s saying Jokic is “stat padding” by passing the ball to his teammates rather than shooting – making Jokic the rare NBA star to be called selfish for not shooting *more*. https://t.co/jupiHvuhW7
— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) March 4, 2023
don’t change your take now, you specifically targeted jokic and claimed he is a statpadder
— Alex (@AlxMD7) March 6, 2023
This play is gonna lead to a week of content from Nick Wright, Kendrick Perkins and First Take about how Nikola Jokic’s egregious stat padding has spread to the rest of the NBA https://t.co/dDmu1ll0rh
— Nick H (@NickHehemann) March 6, 2023
As the previous tweet indicates, Giannis has probably provided ESPN with another week’s worth of stupidity on air for their ‘pundits’ to dazzle fans with. Sigh.
