After a couple of weeks when he made the headlines for his remarks about Chris Paul, Patrick Beverley keeps getting backlash for what it felt to be a personal attack against the Phoenix Suns superstar.
Besides Kevin Durant, Damian Lillard, and other players, more people joined the Beverley slander for his disrespectful comments. The last name to join the list is Kendrick Perkins, who kept the receipts on Bev and unleashed against him on today’s edition of ESPN’s First Take.
Perkins wanted to check on what Beverley said and called him out for defending the underperforming James Harden while attacking Chris Paul. He took his L for saying that Harden and Embiid would be the next Kobe and Shaq before going off on the Minnesota Timberwolves guard:
“I have to re-visit two weeks ago. Because Stephen A. and Molly, you asked me to bring the energy so I brought the energy today. …Y’all was talking about the James Harden situation and giving him the money in Philly, and Pat Bev said, ‘y’all need to give him his flowers. You Stephen A., Matt Barnes and Perk’. First of all, I never came on here not have given James Harden his flowers. I always praised James Harden, to the fact that I’m sitting here right now looking crazy because I said that they could possibly be the next version of Kobe and Shaq, but James Harden got me here sitting and looking like a fool.”
After that, Perk told Beverley that friendships don’t matter once you become an analyst, while also asking him to have the same energy for James Harden that he had for Chris Paul:
“Here is my thing with you, Pat Bev. I watched you come on here on Monday, I watch you sit here and I watch you dismantle CP3. I watch you give CP3 the business… You didn’t tell a lie [about CP3], but you didn’t tell the truth about James Harden, your homie. So when you come on here, and you come on TV, taking yourself of our the basketball space and you become an analyst, homies don’t matter no more. You gotta come here and speak the truth, and you was just telling a lie and truth was nowhere near you for the simple fact that if you’re gonna sit on here and tell us that James Harden deserves a supermax after his performance and after what he did in Philadelphia this past season, you were telling a lie. And all you was showing was that was your homeboy that you was protecting. You ask Stephen A. why he didn’t give the same energy to CP3 that we give to Ben Simmons, why the hell you didn’t give the same energy to James Harden that you gave to CP3?”
Bev tried to come back and offer an answer, saying that he was talking about offensive qualities and performances, but Perkins wasn’t having any of that. He blasted Harden for underperforming in the postseason, leaving Bev without a response:
“That’s not fact. …I’m not talking about seasons, I’m talking about when it matters the most, because if we’re talking about the season, then we’re talking about CP3 being the ultimate floor general and leading the best team in the NBA to have the best record if you wanna talk about the season. We were talking about the postseason when it matters the most.”
Perkins wasn’t having any of that, and he knows that being an analyst will often create some frictions between friends, but he’s learned to live with that. Beverley looked confused after the former center replied to all the things he said and pointed out Harden’s terrible postseason with the 76ers. Kendrick is one of those analysts that fans love to hate, but this time, it’ll be hard to find somebody who was rooting against him in this debate vs. Beverley.
