Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck recently appeared in an episode of Jeff Teague’s ‘Club 520’ podcast that was recorded during the Fanatics Fest and spoke about their veteran Kendrick Perkins. Grosbeck initially spoke about how, in 2010, if Perkins had not gotten injured, they would’ve won the title. He later revealed that despite his close relationship with the former NBA champion, he could not invite him to their 2024 championship parade.
“I love Perk to this day. He wasn’t invited to our parade last year. That is true. Uh, because he had been giving people a lot of sh**… So I had family members of players saying, ‘If that guy’s in the parade, we’re not in the parade.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s you know, okay, you win.'”
Grousbeck did not name any specific players who complained against him but revealed the general sentiment he got from some players.
This situation has put both Grousbeck and Perkins in a tough position. While Grousbeck was forced to choose between his current team and the former NBA champion, Perkins must have also been compelled to introspect his evaluations of the team and whether he values his crude honesty for his NBA Analyst role with ESPN more than his relationship with his former team.
Perkins had a public disagreement with Jayson Tatum in January 2022, where he praised Jaylen Brown’s performance while putting down Tatum in the process.
“Jaylen Brown completely took over this game with his first triple-double of his career! Played a perfect game while Jayson Tatum went 6/14 from the field. They got the win, tho! Carry on…”
Tatum responded by shutting him down with the perfect response.
“Normalizing uplifting one man without bringing another one down… JB played great, it’s alright to leave it at that.”
Normalizing uplifting one man without bringing another one down… JB played great it’s alright to leave it at that https://t.co/hC2mGhNljQ
— Jayson Tatum (@jaytatum0) January 9, 2022
He later also claimed that Jayson Tatum was “scared as hell” during the 2022 NBA Finals and called the Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla a “birdbrain” at the time.
In his eight seasons with the Celtics, Perkins averaged 6.4 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 1.4 blocks, which on paper seem to be role player numbers. Yet, Grousbeck claims Perkins was so essential to the team that his loss in 2010 cost them a championship. He won his only NBA championship with the Celtics in 2008 despite his four appearances across four teams.
Does the former NBA champion deserve to be ostracized by the team he won his championship with? It will be interesting to see how Perkins responds after the owner has now made this public admission.
