It’s been pretty trendy to trash Rudy Gobert these days. Everybody is doing it.
Fans were going in on Gobert for getting cooked by Nikola Jokic in Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals. Draymond Green has been taking shots at Gobert for as long as he’s been on the Inside the NBA show during these playoffs. It’s been bad. Really bad. The dude can’t catch a break.
Now, Kendrick Perkins and ESPN are jumping in on the joke, too.
Perkins called voting for Rudy Gobert as the Defensive Player of the Year has been the “biggest regret” of his post-NBA media career so far.
Kendrick Perkins says that he's embarrassed he used his Defensive Player of the Year vote on Rudy Gobert and calls it the biggest regret of his media career.
"He has tarnished the Defensive Player of the Year award. He has. He's not respected by his peers. We saw what happened… pic.twitter.com/P4ykITaNZu
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 28, 2024
“Me voting this season for Rudy Gobert is an embarrassment for me. He’s the first player that we see every single time in the postseason that becomes a defensive liability. Don’t come give me these analytics, don’t come give me these plus-minus stats…When I look at Rudy, he has tarnished the Defensive Player of the Year award.”
We can add Kendrick Perkins to the gaggle of media talking heads who have it out for Gobert.
For Perkins to say voting for him is the biggest regret of his media career is wild. You’d think it’d be that time that he fell for an Andre Iguodala troll or that time he quoted a report live on air from *checks notes* Ballsack Sports. Public shame doesn’t hit quite the same way it used to these days.
What Perkins is saying here about Gobert is ridiculous. He says he doesn’t want the advanced stats or the analytics or whatever, so I won’t. I guess bringing facts to the table is frowned upon. But, hey, if we want to just go off of logic and vibes, we can do that, too.
Perkins is basically chastising Gobert for not being able Jokic and Luka Doncic without help. Keep in mind that one of those players just won a third MVP award in four years and the other was the runner-up. I’m pretty sure you can line up whoever against them in single coverage and it probably won’t end well. But what do I know?
Because of that, I guess, he can’t be Defensive Player of the Year. If we’re going by that criteria, we should probably abolish the award and save everyone the trouble because no one would be worthy.
If Perk wants to surrender his vote for actually making a sound decision? More power to him. Maybe somebody with a bit more sense about all this can take his place.