Former Celtic Kendrick Perkins describes growing up poor after personal tragedy in new memoir

Perkins’ new memoir outlines his journey to the NBA from the poverty and catastrophes that shaped his childhood.

Champion Boston Celtics big man turned NBA broadcaster Kendrick Perkins didn’t always have the sports world as his oyster.

As a child, he went through the sort of hard times most of us only see in movies. His father abandoned him and his mother to play basketball abroad, and his mother was killed by a friend in an argument between them at work.

A life-altering affront followed by unimaginable tragedy, Big Perk had to live with his grandparents in Beaumont, Texas, in poverty compounded by his rapid growth as a teenager that left his pants unstylish “highwaters” several inches above his ankles.

“My pants, even when newly bought, would quickly become too short,” related Perkins in a new autobiography co-penned with Seth Rogoff (via the New York Post’s Gavin Newsham).