The 2022-23 NBA season was an incredibly interesting one, as we saw a lot of NBA norms challenged by what’s happening on the court. The one consistent thing was a vicious MVP battle between Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic, which led to some really controversial comments made.
ESPN was centerstage to most such comments, with Kendrick Perkins and JJ Redick arguing incessantly over Embiid and Jokic’s cases for the trophy. It got ugly when Perkins implied a racial bias against African-American players when it came to voting on First Take. Show host Stephen A. Smith discussed the situation with Bill Simmons in depth.
“Everybody I’ve brought on the show, this is what I demand from them. Be your true authentic self. Don’t come on here with no phony s**t. Don’t have me, or our audience looking at you and thinking you’re faking something or you’re saying something for just effect. You need to feel it. Here’s where it gets tricky though, what happens is sometimes in the heat of a debate you’re saying something and then you catch yourself and you’re like, ‘Oh s**t, what did I just say?’”
Smith then made specific comments about how Redick’s responses to Perkins seemed motivated by anger, which led to the situation becoming untenable and Smith needing to step in.
“What I didn’t know was the fury, at least it appeared to be fury to me, that JJ Redick was feeling over the subject. When he came on, on one hand, I understood how or why he felt the way he felt because of what Perk had said. On the other hand, I was saying to JJ, ‘This is your colleague on the show. If you feel that way, did you have to come at him like that?’ Because it did get uncomfortable. JJ and Kendrick made it appear like it was about them. And that’s when I knew it was bad and I stepped in. But it was uncomfortable.”
The debates will soon be forgotten, but it was an incredibly tense time every time viewers tuned into a show with Perkins and Redick, as both the former NBA players butted heads over this matter various times.
What Happened Between JJ Redick And Kendrick Perkins?
During the heat of the 2023 MVP race between Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid, Perkins came on to First Take to advocate for Embiid when Redick wasn’t on the show after Redick had called Perkins out for spreading a false narrative about Jokic being a stat-padder.
“When I look at JJ and I hear him talk because he’s so big in analytics and he’s a historian when it comes down to diving in deep and going back into history and talking about the evolution of the game, why didn’t he bring up this in a particular subject: When it comes down to guys winning MVP since 1990, it’s only three guys that won the MVP that wasn’t Top 10 in scoring. Do you know who those three guys were? Steve Nash, Jokic and Dirk Nowitzki. Now, what do those guys have in common? I’ll let it sit there and marinate you think about it.”
.@KendrickPerkins gives his rebuttal to the backlash from @jj_redick for his Nikola Jokić comments 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/20R4K79SQP
— First Take (@FirstTake) March 1, 2023
Redick responded to Perkins by calling out exactly what Perkins implied.
“Stephen A. [Smith], I mean no offense to you. I mean no offense to ‘First Take.’ Because I think this show is extremely valuable. It is an honor to be at this desk every day. What we just witnessed is the problem with this show. We create narratives that do not exist in reality. What you’re implying is that the white voters that vote on NBA are racist, that they favor white people. You just said that. It’s exactly what you implied.”
Things got heated between JJ Redick and Kendrick Perkins 👀 pic.twitter.com/d7F5nuMU52
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) March 7, 2023
Nash and Jokic were gifted playmakers that severely changed how teams play based on their dominance, which isn’t reliant on them scoring the ball. Nowitzki led the Mavericks to the No. 1 seed in 2007 with 67 wins in a very deep Western Conference. He averaged 24.6 points and 8.9 rebounds, putting up perfectly MVP-worthy numbers on the best team in the league. He also became the first seven-footer to shoot 50-40-90 for a season that year.
A name that Perkins left out from his list was Magic Johnson, who won MVP in 1990 despite not being one of the top-10 scorers that season. Similar to Nash and Jokic, Johnson did it through his incredible impact on the floor with playmaking. Redick clearly didn’t agree with Perkins, which is why the debate became as publicized as it did.
Perkins ended up winning the short-term battle when Embiid was named MVP ahead of Jokic, but Redick ended up having the last laugh. Jokic led the Nuggets to a championship with one of the most dominant playoff runs in recent memory.
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