Kendrick Perkins Reverses Course, Makes Case For White Player To Win NBA MVP

ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins has apparently reversed course on what he thinks about white players in the NBA.

On a Wednesday discussion of "NBA Today," a panel of league analysts were discussing candidates for the MVP award. Perkins was on this panel, and brought up the names of some of the favorites for this honor.

But then he brought up a star that few people but him think has any chance of the award: Sacramento Kings forward Domantas Sabonis. 

Perkins mentioned that he has a strong MVP case because not only does Sabonis lead the NBA in double-doubles (with 54 in 58 games), but also triple-doubles (21). 

Now I’m not here to argue whether this impressive output is good enough for Sabonis to become MVP. I don’t follow the NBA closely enough to get into a nuanced argument on who should get his award, nor do I care to.

But I am here to point out how Perkins’ comments are fundamentally opposite to his approach to naming MVP favorites from last year.

Perkins Was Disgusted By the Thought Of A White Player Winning The NBA MVP Award In 2023

We first need to establish that Sabonis is white. Not that that should matter, since a player’s MVP case should be measured by what they do on the court rather than the melanin count in their skin. 

But last year, Perkins didn’t grasp that concept.

When the MVP conversation began to heat up in 2023, the two front-runners were a pair of centers: the Philadelphia 76ers’ Joel Embiid and the Denver Nuggets’ Nikola Jokić.

Both guys had incredibly compelling cases to win the award based on their performances. In addition to his statistics, Jokić was generating MVP buzz because he had won the award the past two years. He had a legitimate shot of becoming just the fourth player in league history to win three straight MVP awards.

Perkins didn't want Jokić (right) to win the MVP award in 2023. But this year, he'd love it if Sabonis (right) did.

That is, until Perkins opened his mouth.

Almost exactly one year ago, Perkins suggested that Jokić was only getting MVP consideration because of his skin color. In his mind, Perkins thought the only way you could be outside the top 10 in the league in scoring and still get MVP votes was if you’re white.

"When it comes down to guys winning MVPs 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, Jokić, and Dirk Nowitzki. What do those guys have in common? I’ll let it sit there and marinate; you think about it," Perkins said.

Perkins Seems To Have Changed His Ways, But He Never Should Have Had To

It’s true, Jokić was outside the top 10 in scoring at the time Perkins said these things. But he was also averaging a triple-double, and was the best player on the best team in the Western Conference. He was the odds-on favorite to win the whole thing.

Nevertheless, that changed when Perkins shared his race-baiting narrative. Perkins also indicated that he would not vote for a white player to get MVP in the upcoming award season.

OutKick’s Bobby Burack suggested that all of this posturing could cost Jokić the MVP award, and it unfortunately did. Embiid won which, given his season output, wasn’t a bad choice. But he got a little racist help from Perkins.

Perkins seems to think white players can now get credit in the MVP chase, which is very big of him.

Fast-forward one year later, and Perkins all of a sudden has no problem bringing white guys like Sabonis into the spotlight. In fact, you don’t even have to be in the top 10, 20, or even 40 in the league in points per game for Perkins to make a case for you anymore. Sabonis is 46th in the NBA in scoring per game, yet that’s good enough to gain MVP consideration from Perkins.

Once again, I’m not here to say that this is right or wrong. But I’m not complaining about this either. I think it's great that Perkins (for now) seems just fine with giving white players their due praise based on their achievements. It's very big of him.

It’s just unfortunate that Jokic was robbed of a chance at history before Perkins recognized how ridiculous it is to race-bait in the NBA MVP conversation.