Kendrick Perkins was ready with an apology on Friday afternoon’s edition of The Jump. Just not to Kevin Durant.
Perkins apologized to Russell Westbrook for taking away from his moment and his return to Oklahoma City on Thursday night.
Now Perkins did somewhat backtrack his statement about Westbrook being the best to ever put on a Thunder jersey, saying that, “I never meant to say that Russell Westbrook is an overall better basketball player than Kevin Durant. I’ve said it on The Jump last year, I said it on First Take during the finals, that Kevin Durant was the best player in the world.”
However, he did reiterate that Westbrook took full advantage of the opportunity that was made available when KD left for Golden State, something Perkins acknowledges was “his choice”.
According to Perkins, Westbrook earned the title Mr. Thunder by “continuing to put them guys in the position to be successful every year”.
Perkins points out that KD has mentioned previously that he no longer cares what his former organization is doing, and asked, “what does it matter?” Insisting that he “wasn’t shooting a slug” at Durant and that however KD feels about the situation, “that’s on him.”
Perkins’ explanation of the Twitter beef between him and his former teammate starts at the 3:40 mark.