Perk Thinks Westbrook was Treated Worse than Rondo

You can take Kendrick Perkins out of the Celtics, but you can't take the Celtics out of Perkins.  After being eliminated in 5 games to the Dallas Mavericks, Perk was asked about his new point guard and the criticism he's received.  In a piece written by ESPN's John Hollinger,Perk's response was this:

Perkins went so far to say that Westbrook has taken a lot more heat than his former teammate, Rajon Rondo, did in Boston prior to the Celtics winning a championship.

"One thing I learned," Perkins said, "is I don't watch ESPN, I don't read the papers, I don't do none of that. I don't even talk basketball with my own wife. Seriously. Because it could break up a locker room, it could break a team. I think Russell handled everything well. One thing about Russell, he's great with adversity. He always kept his head high, he never showed any sign of weakness."

"Russell's [been treated] worse than Rondo. Rondo's lasted a little bit, but Russell lasted for the whole playoffs, no matter if he played good or bad, he was getting criticized about something."

So Perk doesn't watch ESPN or read the papers?  He MUST read blogs because that's where Rondo gets routinely and needlessly blasted.  Ok I'm half kidding but it's interesting that Perk would bring up Rondo.  Obviously one reason is because it's the only other point guard he could compare him to in this scenario:  A young point guard being criticized for his decision making during key playoff games.

With Westbrook, it's his penchant for taking too many shots and not passing enough to Kevin Durant or running plays for everyone else.  With Rondo it was pretty much the opposite.  Rondo over-passes, teams play off him because he can't shoot, etc.  Isn't it funny how two very effective and very good point guards are great in different ways, yet seem to get criticized too much for completely different reasons?

In some instances the criticism is warranted and logical.  A lot of times, people go overboard with it and at the end of the day I love having Rondo on the Celtics and if people have so many issues with Westbrook, I'd take him too.