Kendrick Perkins Opens Up About the Westbrook-Durant Relationship

When the Oklahoma City Thunder acquired Kendrick Perkins back in 2011 in the same deal that sent Jeff Green to the Boston Celtics, it completely changed the dynamic of the team. 

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Adding Perkins to a roster of budding superstars not only gave the Thunder a veteran big with championship experience, but it gave the team a player with toughness, which was something OKC lacked. Perkins was immediately a hit in the locker room and in the community, and built strong relationships with both Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook and to this day considers both of them as brothers. 

Now that Durant no longer plays for the Thunder and there's obvious drama between he and Westbrook, Perkins opened up about the duo's relationship when appearing on The Vertical Podcast With Adrian Wojnarowski. 

I think to me, what happened was with Russ and KD, I think they never really valued each other like they should have. And not saying that they didn't value as, like, didn't like each other. What I'm talking about is, I don't think they ever realized and said, hey - I don't think Russ ever realized and said, 'Hey man, I got Kevin Durant on my side, we could take over this league.' And I never thought KD did vice versa. He never said, 'Hey I got Russell Westbrook on my side.' You got two of the top five players in the NBA on the same team. And I just think that they never valued each other, and trust me - I'm telling you this right now - when they think about this 10 years later, they're gonna regret that. They're gonna regret that they didn't value each other the way that they should have. And I'm talking about both of them. And I ain't saying they didn't like each other, because it wasn't none of that. I mean, we all played cards, they laughed and joked, we all had conversation. We had a group text going about Redskin and Cowboys football because it was all good.

"I think what it was was this. Let me correct that. I think what it was was this. Russ actually did value KD as being the player that he is. But what I had to explain -  and I explained it to KD -  is that what you have to understand about Russ is that Russ, at the time, he wasn't getting the credit of being on the same level as KD, but he had the potential. The whole thing was is that, I thought out of all that, it never really came down to those two guys that got in the way of each other. It was always the outside that got in the way of both of them."

Perkins also chimed in about how Durant decided to leave the Thunder, and wishes he would've handled it differently. 

My whole thing is, is that, and this was the thing, was that, okay it’s cool that KD, yeah you’re a man, you decide the decision you want to make, but at the end of the day in a way it’s about how you go about it. And you don’t send Russ and text and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to the Warriors.’ No you do like LeBron James did when he left Miami, he went down and he sit and had dinner with Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade to tell them that he was leaving, that he was going to sign with Cleveland. That’s what you do, that’s what you do. That carries a long way. It don’t take you nothing to call Nick Collison and Russell Westbrook and go and sit down and have a conversation with them and say, ‘Guys, look it’s been fun, I still love y'all like my brothers, but I’m going to Golden State.’”

Perkins spoke very high of the Thunder organization in his interview and went on to say he believed the current Thunder roster is only one piece away from being in the mix. You can find the entire interview here.