Thunder center Kendrick Perkins has become something of a running joke among NBA heads on Twitter and elsewhere. His mean mugging, the stunted offensive game, the liquid way the Thunder play when Perk isn’t on the floor and the minuscule ROI for that $10 million a year (not to mention OKC’s reluctance to amnesty him pre-James Harden trade), all add up to a lot of abuse from fans and analysts alike. But man, it was cold the way the Thunder recently chilled together and didn’t include Perk.
The good people at Welcome To Loud City noticed what went down earlier this week when little-used reserve, and Perkins backup, Hasheem Thabeet, uploaded a pic to IG featuring a large swath of Thunder players, but not Kendrick Perkins.
Perk’s comment on the pic doesn’t load on IG — and it might have been removed anyway, for language or because he was embarrassed by the stridency of the comment, but Welcome To Loud City captured a screenshot on their phone, which shows Perk really was hurt to be left out of the group gathering. But he’s still got love for his teammates. Warning, language is NSFW:
Perkins can strike outsiders as a malcontent curmudgeon who hates everybody, especially if they’re playing the Thunder. He’s got pretty strict post-game locker-room policies and we can’t remember the last time he cracked a smile during a game that wasn’t an ironic blast after a referee’s whistle. But we feel for him here. From what we’ve read and heard from him, Perk is a great teammate and we think he should have gotten an invite to Thabeet’s chill session.
[via Welcome to Loud City]
Should the Thunder players have included Perkins when they hung out?
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