Wednesday, February 8th, 2012 at 9:00 am  |  105 responses

Kendrick Perkins Criticizes LeBron for Reaction to Blake Griffin Dunk


by Marcel Mutoni / @marcel_mutoni

When Blake Griffin viciously dunked over Kendrick Perkins last week, it seemed that every NBA player with a Twitter account giddily posted their reaction to the amazing play. Kendrick Perkins, to his credit, took it all in stride.

Well, almost all of it.

LeBron James was just as excited about the Griffin dunk as anyone, which Perkins took offense to. Kendrick ripped LeBron in an interview with Yahoo! Sports last night:

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.”

Kendrick Perkins added that as a defender, he will never hesitate when he sees someone like Blake Griffin charging towards him. It’s his job to protect the rim, and if that means getting dunked on and humiliated from time to time, then so be it.

Should the OKC Thunder and Miami Heat meet in this year’s NBA Finals, a tantalizing possibility in and of itself, this Kendrick Perkins/LeBron James beef would make for a fascinating subplot.

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  • GC6

    I respect Perkins more for getting in the way takes something to do that

  • MUBWAR

    i think he is still hurt about what james did to his former team in last year’s playoff. Oh and perk when the Thunder don’t win a championship in the next 2 to 4 years, guess who the blame will fall on. A 6’10 slow Center who can’t shoot, block or rebound efficiently. I felt like i just describe Joel Anthony

  • MUBWAR

    besides the blocking of course

  • Bravo

    Get @ him Perk!

  • Yesse

    Well, he is somewhat right, but i bet he is somewhat pissed.

  • http://palehour.com Pale

    Wow. I wasn’t aware that treating a game like a boring job was what it meant to be a “professional.”

    Grow up Perkins. As much as you’d subconsciously like to play a role in that, Blake could have jumped over anyone.

  • Ev

    Perkins your a baby back b!tch. Trying to call him out on somethin corny

  • http://www.slamonline.com Eboy

    Uhm…Perk better be careful or Bron’s teammate, D-Wade, might knock him on his fat a*s again with a monster dunk. Unless his crybaby a*s forgot that one too.

  • Rik Smits Mullet

    What the hell. Because jordan and kobe dont have twitter, lebron james cant tweet. come on man. doesnt make any sense. And why cant elite players get impressed by a game they play as well.
    Looks like after taking it in stride the effects of the dunk maybe surface a week later.

  • bull22

    naw… who said in one of them twitter messages, his career OVER for gettin dunked on like that??? ((some nobody)) but thats who he should be fOnkin wit…but it is what it is *g shrugs*

  • Justin G.

    Perkins is right and wrong here. He’s right about James wanting the world to love him and it nobody else talks about himself as having done the best of anything during the season. “I guess I’m number 2 now?” And he’s right about how the elite players don’t go tweeting about minor things. Even during the lockout, all of the Tweetcaps that SLAM kept showing were mostly nobodies. He’s wrong to get mad at what another player thinks though, elite player or not. In the end, who gives a rat’s a$$ about what James thinks? He’s also wrong about elite players not getting excited about those things. When Shaq threw down that alley oop against Portland in the Conference Finals, him and Kobe were screaming up a storm. They are still human and seeing things like that excite everybody that isn’t on the team that it happened to

  • http://www.twitter.com/hurstysyd Hursty

    Respect for Perkins doing what a C is meant to, attempting to protect the rim.
    But damn, he is going to be the ANGRIEST old man of all-time. Imagine this guy even at age 50? Sheesh.

  • http://www.optimabbc.be Max

    Just Perk being Perk.

  • c.a.

    He is right. To me, as an NBA fan, LBJ always seems to be doing what he is advised to do, e.g. jumping on the twitter craze etc.
    His ‘guess I am number 2′ is a very calculated tweet really, giving props to a fellow pro but also keeping his name in the conversation, almost a subliminal ‘don’t forget the King’.
    I think he plays dumb quite often, his brand is more subtle than Jordan and Kobe, but he is still puncturing the subconscious….

  • Justin G.

    bull22 I think that was Amir Johnson who said that which, as a Raptor fan, maks me chuckle that Amir Johnson would be saying something like that

  • Travis

    The trend I’ve been seeing in professional sports, especially the NBA, is that there are pro-Twitter and anti-Twitter stances. I agree with KP that Jordan(even though it didn’t exist when he played)and Kobe would never tweet/speak/utter the meaningless crap that LeBron tweets. But the younger crowd thinks tweeting is the be-all end-all. LeBron is the younger crowd. He strokes his ego on twitter and he wants people to see that he is doing so.

  • dsleepy

    well, he’s kinda right about bron’s attitude tough, isn’t he? LBJ is an attention whore, plain and simple. that being said, bron still has a right to his own opinion. can’t be mad at a dude for NOT being an elite player, mentally. he is what he is.

  • Ev

    Perk just another hater. Simple as that

  • http://SLAM FLIGHT 9

    lebron is really stupid, punk, feeling MJ, just too much self admiration…. anyway, perk get ur weight back at 280 lbs……..

  • AD

    i agree to some degree..theres a time when you pay respects and there is a time when you do not ‘praise” another player or team. Lebron gets critized too much and i think perkins shouldnt have said this…. There were other players doing the same think so this was king of a low blow to LBJ… LBJ needs to just win a championship, become the finals mvp so role players, ex players, wannabess , so called “sports analyst”, skip bayeless and haters can shut the hell up.. Im tired of the LBJ hate… Ya act like the dunk over ken lucas was not the best until blake demolished perkins. Perk made a good move jumping and not running out the way like his buddy Durant. I wonder what the haters gon do when LBJ gets his first ring. Who yall gon hate on next?

  • Kobester

    Perk had the right to be pissed. If I got dunked on like that other people tweet about it then I wouldn’t be so excited. But he better address his feelings carefully or Bron might just do one better on Perk the next time Heat plays the Thunder.

  • http://nba.com GP23

    Perkins sounds like a bitter and jealous man. Get over it !

  • Charles

    Listen Perk. Don’t get Lebron fired up on this one. Gonna be a nice game next time they play…

  • T-Money

    umm.. someone needs to tell perk that durant goes crazy on twitter when there’s a nice play. if i’m lebron, i don’t even respond to this.

  • Cizzo

    Lebron is Super Soft and thes Mordern day NBA dudes need to stay off these social networking sites and develop their craft….These cats are a bunch Gossip Girls…

  • robb

    lebron’s always been like that, he’s excitable and he likes to talk, but he didn’t do anything wrong, twitter exists so narcicistic people can get the attention they crave, if you are mr. nobody using twitter is pathetic because nobody gives a s*** about you and what you do every 2 minutes, but if you are a superstar like Lebron and you have 3,000,000 followers your reactions are something people are waiting for and appreciate. Deal with it Perkins.

  • Treshiq

    Disagree…Look at the sidelines of All-Star games, finals, playoffs that included the greats MJ, MAgis, Bird etc…they all got excited over big plays…C Webb said the other day he’s still star struck about Dr.J…Basketball players are humans and fans of the game. I like Perk, but he’s being salty. But I AGREEE full heartedly about protecting the rim…You do your job, you’re gonna get dunk on occassionally..it happens.. It’s like me sending e-mails at work to the whole department with no attachments…and then saying “see attachment” it’s embarassing, but you move on…and almost guarentee it’ll happen again. ( not a good analogy at all…but work with it.)

  • vctmac

    we need the shot blockers in the game, and its part of the game to get yammed on lmao, but tht being said, Perk cnt say Lebron doesnt have the right to enjoy the game from a fans point of view. when he compared to lebron to mike and kobe, he forgot to mention lebron was still in highschool when kobe and jordan were getting paid in the big leagues. cnt compare tht homie, yeaah lebron is trying to get every1 to like him, but dsnt mean he cnt do tht, he a yung dude whos a fan of the game.

  • bull22

    i think slam needs to start making people register on this site, they still have not fixed that problem with others using the same name.

  • Andy

    Awesome Perk. Guess LeBron isn’t an elite player… What about Dirk who tweeted about it? He’s an nba champion and finals MVP. Nuts that people think that Kobe and MJ wouldn’t have been talking about that dunk next day in practice. All this shows me is they are fans of the game, just like we are.

    Perk must still be feeling that Wade hammer dunk from last year.

    “I’m not mad, but i’m mad lebron tweeted!” smfh.

  • takashi

    He should be mad at the rapper “The Game”. the man tweets about perkins getting dunked on everyday.

  • T. Brown

    I hope Lebron dunks “on Perkins so hard!”… would be a great finals matchup 4sure.

  • http://yahoo.com LakerNation

    He is absolutely right, why is lebron acting like a fan if he is the player in the game.

  • Evan

    Why people on here talkin crazy about Bron hes not the one who got 7th grader salty over a play.

  • hulahula

    it just a reaction i saw alot lebron reaction when something amazing happen for him like the cowboys winning a match or his team winning even that griffin dunk.cmon perk just ignore it…

  • http://Www.youtube.com/users/asrongutan Awkwardaaron

    So that’s why lebron doesn’t win championships – he’s got twitter !!

  • DeeDre

    I love Perkins, but he’s acting like the kid that got pushed to the ground by a bully but takes his frustrations out on one of the kid who laughs. I understand your pain but he’s just reacting. If you gettin that emotional over a tweet, no wonder you get so many technicals

  • Paul H

    Kendrick Perkins averages 4.5 points and 5.5 rebounds a game. Getting dunked on like that Is his major contribution to the NBA this season. Can we please start hearing the opinions of people who are still f**king relevant?

  • LA Huey

    MJ is from a different generation. Kobe hardly does anything that doesn’t directly correlate to wins or money. I think it was silly that LeBron mentioned himself in his tweet but I like when players react like fans do. Man, Durant and Perk are real salty

  • b. angus

    if i was perk, id bee pissed off 2 but i think he should bee thankful that lebron didnt use him as a fcukin’ hurdle…

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OhGZNLPSOY&feature=related Allenp

    So when Durant tweets it’s cool?

  • http://www.slamonline.com Dagger

    I would imagine that if you’re a player in the NBA you’re a fan as well. Players have been reacting to big dunks and great plays for decades, and you’d be a fool to think otherwise. As for Perkins, he should probably try to make people forget that dunk rather than bringing it up in the most pathetic way imaginable.

  • http://Slamonline.com nbk

    This is why the Thunder asked Perkins to get rid of his twitter. This guy is an emotional dumbass. Your elite teammates tweet all the time dude.

  • LA Huey

    @Dagger, unless you’re Ivan Johnson or Luke Ridnour. Dude’s claim not to read much about the NBA.

  • Paul H

    Like I said Allen, Perk is a non entity. I don’t even like Lebron and I think he should keep his mouth shut.

  • angus

    kobe bryant and micheal jordan are too old to have twitter accounts, duh perk…

  • robb

    I’m sure if Blake had dunked on any other player like that, KD would’ve been tweeting like crazy. Him being humble is such a pose.

  • CP

    Who!!!! Ain’t that the dude who used to play for the Celtics.

  • Paul H

    Yeah I heard he was the fifth best player on a team that won a championship a hundred years ago. Or at least It seems like that.

  • capostat

    Not a good week for Lebron…

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