Fans react to Kendrick Perkins and JJ Redick’s feud over racial bias in NBA voting: “First Take gonna be ground zero for the race war”
NBA veterans JJ Redick and Kendrick Perkins have been at odds in recent weeks.
The feud started as a result of the MVP debate this season. The way many see things, Nikola Jokic is well on his way to winning another MVP award thanks to his and the Denver Nuggets' play.
Despite that, Kendrick Perkins wasn't sold. The way he sees things, Jokic is stat padding. These comments didn't sit well with NBA vet JJ Redick, who was quick to fire back, shutting down the talk. The conversation then shifted, with Perkins claiming that there was a racial element to the vote.
The two men have taken shots at each other over the past few weeks, and they both appeared on ESPN this week to battle it out. Unsurprisingly, things quickly became heated.
Things got heated between JJ Redick and Kendrick Perkins 👀 https://t.co/d7F5nuMU52
Fans were quick to react to the showdown. Here are some of the comments:
Warning: NSFW Language
@TheNBACentral First Take gonna be ground zero for the race war
@TheNBACentral Turn this shit up like an oven!! 🔥🔥🔥
@TheNBACentral Kendrick Perkins vs JJ Redick https://t.co/VmUq9uZx2P
@TheNBACentral JJ Redick every time he goes on first take: https://t.co/F5j5ouM8jm
@TheNBACentral kendrick perkins https://t.co/itGpVOTmMD
@TheNBACentral Kendrick Perkins when he’s confronted https://t.co/Oe4rVJq9fd
@TheNBACentral Perk thinks the louder he is means the more correct he is 😂😂
@TheNBACentral JJ loves going against Perk and Stephen A lol https://t.co/1MPBwfxkVB
@TheNBACentral Kendrick Perkins: “I never said that, I never said that” 5 seconds later, “I was speaking facts!”
@TheNBACentral JJ Redick is single-handedly saving sports media. Straight shooter who doesn’t feel the need to bring race and sports into every conversation like Stephen A. Let’s talk ball and not about politics. He’s ESPN’s worse nightmare
@TheNBACentral @ninjanate1024 Perk: I didn’t say that x10
Also Perk: CAUSE IT’S A FACT
???
@TheNBACentral Glad JJ is pointing out one of the bigger issues in sports debate today, when people use narratives or hypotheticals they make up about players, situations, etc and talk about it as facts when it’s not.
What did Kendrick Perkins say about MVP voting and how did JJ Redick respond?
As Kendrick Perkins has been claiming since February, there have been several instances where arguably undeserving white players have won an MVP award.
The examples he gave in addition to Jokic were Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki, both of whom won MVP without being top 10 scorers in the league since 1990.
The way he sees things, this season with Nikola Jokic leading the MVP race over Joel Embiid, it's more of the same (as quoted by Sports Illustrated):
“What do those guys have in common? I’ll let it sit there and marinate. You think about it. … When it comes down to moving the goal posts for certain individuals to win it, again, is it Oochie Wally? Or is it One Mic? What song are we actually dancing to right now, why is this subject not brought up?”
This week, when the two men appeared on ESPN alongside one another, Redick fired back, poking holes in Perkins' argument with a perfect example:
"First of all you stopped short at 1990. That was your cutoff point for players to win MVP not in the top 10 in ppg which is a stupid stat to judge MVP on. This isn't middle school. 1990 Magic won it, and 89 Magic won. In 87 Magic won it. 87 he was 19th. 89 he was 15th, 90 he was 18.
"We just MVP year to year, you also said the criteria or the goal post changed year to year for certain players. No it doesn't. We vote on the MVP based on that season. It is a regular season award, previous playoff runs have nothing to do with it. It's a season award for the most valuable player and we can measure that Perk."
After their big blowup on ESPN this week, Perkins thanked Redick for challenging him.
The way he sees things, the conversation about race in the MVP voting needed to be had. In his mind, black players have been feeling as though white players have been favored for MVP for years behind the scenes.
For his part, Redick admitted that the two will always be good, regardless of how heated things get on set.
You can see Redick's rebuttal as quoted above starting at the 3-minute mark in the video below.