Kendrick Perkins is tired of Charles Barkley’s constant critiques of his former teammate, Kevin Durant. “Big Perk” took to the “First Take” panel of NBA analysts to send a message directly to Charles Barkley that hits at his lack of an NBA championship.
“Only people who try to degrade someone’s championship is a person that never won a championship because they don’t know the journey and how it feels, and I’m talking about former players that try to knock another player that done won a championship, and they haven’t accomplished a damn thing,” Perkins said on “First Take” on Friday.
“And it may be talking about another person like Charles Barkley, who has been going at Kevin Durant. You don’t know how it feels to win a championship because, damn it, you haven’t done it, and damn it, you tried to go to the Houston Rockets your damn self to team up with Hakeem Olajuwon because I’m from Texas.”
Bus Rider Or Bus Driver?
Even though he is widely considered the second-best NBA basketball player of his generation, Barkley has been very critical of Durant as an analyst. After a long early career tenure with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Durant’s championship ways began once he joined the Golden State Warriors in 2016. Durant would win two back-to-back NBA championships for the 2017 and 2018 seasons. Unfortunately for Durant, Barkley’s view on the wins positions Durant as a passenger on a championship roster, or in his words, he was a “bus rider,” and not the “driver.”
Durant spoke about his frustrations with that statement during a March episode of KD’s “The ETCs” podcast,.
“Why is that analogy even brought up for teams?” Durant said on his “Boardroom” podcast. “Like, we ain’t on no f**king bus. I feel like the only reason that kept traction was because of me specifically. If it was about any other player, that sh*t wouldn’t have hit like that.
“But Charles Barkley said that about me and, like I said, disrespecting my game is part of the storyline. So that’s gon’ hit for my storyline more than anything.”
Does Durant’s Legacy Matter?
Additionally, Durant said that focus on his legacy is over due to the negativity that comes with it.
“I don’t care about legacy,” Durant told The Athletic. “I used to. I used to want to carve out a lane or space in this game for myself that people can remember, but it’s become too much of a thing now. It just becomes too much of a focus on other people.”
However, Perkins feels that this new revelation by Durant is a smokescreen to deflect attention away from him from critics like Barkley. From his unique vantage point as a former teammate, Durant works too hard not to care about his legacy.
“I shared a locker room with Kevin Durant for four and a half years,” Perkins said on “First Take” on Friday. “I watched Kevin Durant, and he’s one of the hardest-working guys that I’ve ever been around. I watched us land in cities where Kevin Durant would have high school and middle school gyms already booked and would get off the bus when we arrived at the hotel and go get work in because he cared; he cares about his legacy now.”
Perkins is letting the world know how he sees it in his unique Texas style, and neither Charles Barkley nor Kevin Durant is getting a pass.
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