Poor Kendrick Perkins. He’s getting blasted for laying a gigantic goose egg in the playoffs.
Perkins played in all 11 of the Thunder’s playoff games, averaging 19 minutes per game. In those 11 games, Perkins actually finished with a negative player efficiency rating. His -0.7 mark is the worst PER to have ever been posted in the playoffs by a player who saw 200 minutes or more of floor time. That level uselessness is astoundingly hard to achieve. Jason Collins, whose primary skill was his ability to foul people, has the second-worst PER on that list with 1.8. Nobody has ever gone into negative territory before Perk.
And it’s not as if Perkins’s -0.7 is misleading in any way. He was brought to Oklahoma City to be a rebounder, a defensive stopper, and a shot-blocker. He did none of those things. Perkins blocked just five shots, committed 24 turnovers while scoring just 24 points, and finished with two more rebounds (41) than he had personal fouls (39).
The old school crowd unwilling to digest PER can chew on these numbers: 2.2 ppg, 27% FG, 3.7 rpg, 0.5 bpg
Yikes. Unless there’s a hidden injury, there is absolutely no way to spin those numbers.
The kicker in Deadspin’s story:
Perkins’s performance carries even more stink given the fact that Kevin Durant was left to struggle through two series as the team’s only capable scorer. You know who could have helped Durant carry that load? Jeff Green, also known as the guy who was traded away for Perkins before transforming into one of the Boston Celtics’ go-to scorers.
Oh ye fickle blogger.
It’s perfectly acceptable to blast Perk for his subpar performance, but it’s downright absurd to second guess that trade 2+ years later. Sam Presti was universally lauded for acquiring toughness and defense at the expense of scoring, a skillset his team still has an abundance of.
With two years and $17 million on his contract, Perk remains a candidate for amnesty in OKC.
I know a team in desperate need of a center.
(Props to ESPN’s Tom Haberstroh)
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