I love Kendrick Perkins. First of all, I can listen to the man speak for hours on end. The drawl, the deliberate answers, the unbridled honesty... it's perfect. Secondly, the man's perma-scowl is a thing of beauty. Look at him when Usain Bolt showed up in the locker room a couple of years ago:
Even when the fastest man on the planet showed up for a little photo op, Perk showed up like he wants to rip the photog's face off for impeding his progress to the shower. By far my favorite Perk photo of all time.
And today, Slam's Tzvi Twersky of SLAM published an interview with Perk that included why he loves KG, a slight shot at Tony Allen, his desire to be a Celtic for life, that scowl of his, and one of the great answers to the question "when you come back, you gonna have a chip [on your shoulder]?"
I don’t have a choice. I don’t have a choice but to have a chip on my shoulder.
Some highlights:
SLAM: What areas of your game do you still want to improve?
KP: Well, I still wanna get better with my footwork, my speed, my quickness, my athleticism. You know, I’m not an athlete or nothing like that, but you know obviously you wanna get better at weakness that you have, whatever they may be. So if you always got a right-hand hook, you wanna get a left-hand hook. You know, so I’m trying to work on my left hand, doing everything left-handing. Driving left-handed. Doing everything pretty much left handed, because I want it to get just as good as my right hand.
SLAM: The last couple of years you’ve had the opportunity to play with Kevin Garnett, a future Hall of Famer. Has he taught you a lot?
KP: He taught me too much. Seriously, man. He’s been great. He teaches how to be a man, and most of all he teaches to respect and love the game, and work hard. That’s the most that I get out of him—the love, passion and respect that he gives to the game of basketball is unbelievable
SLAM: When Tony Allen left the team, he said he kind of felt overshadowed by some of the other stars on the team. Do you ever feel that way?
KP: Nah. I feel like without them, we wouldn’t be in the position that we are in right now. Without the Big Three forming, we wouldn’t get the TV pub that you get, and everything else you get. So it’s kind of hard to say, “overshadowing.” You’re really supposed to be kinda grateful to be in that situation.
SLAM: It’s been a good couple years in Boston for you. Now your contract runs out soon. What are you thinking?
KP: Well, I’d love to be a Celtic for life, honestly. But, I know this is a business. So we’re gonna see how this year works out and just go from there. But I wouldn’t want to leave Boston; I love my situation. But we just gotta see and go from there, play this year out.
SLAM: People are also always talking about—and this was a big thing in the playoffs—how you scowl on the court. I just wanted to note for the record: You smile a lot. Do you want to tell people why you don’t smile during games?
KP: Man, because, first of all, this is how I feed my family. This is my job. So every time I get on the court, it’s all business. And then, you got a psychopath like KG right on the side of you, so that’s just added fuel to the fire. (Laughs).
Off the court I’m the coolest person.
Can anyone besides Perk call KG a psychopath. This is just a sampling. Follow the link to see more about his rehab and his contract situation.