Steve Kerr under fire from former NBA player Kendrick Perkins
Steve Kerr’s criticism of Anthony Davis didn’t sit well with ESPN analyst and former NBA player Kendrick Perkins.
The Warriors coach said on an NBC Sports Bay Area podcast that Davis’ efforts to force a trade from the New Orleans Pelicans – he landed with the Los Angeles Lakers last month – were “a real problem that the league has to address and that the players have to be careful with.”
Perkins, who was Davis’ teammate with the Pelicans during the 2015-16 season, called foul.
He said Kerr and the Warriors are in no position to throw stones since they bolstered a championship squad into a super team by adding the likes of sincedeparted Kevin Durant.
Perkins tweeted that Kerr has “got damn nerves to talk about anything that that’s going on with any organization, as if he just didn’t have Kevin Durant join a 73-9 team!”
Perkins wasn’t done, suggesting Kerr didn’t mention Paul George’s breakup at Oklahoma City – resulting in a trade to the Clippers – because of his relationship with Alvin Gentry, the Pelicans head coach and former Warriors associate head coach who was spurned by Davis.
Davis sat out 21 of the Pelicans’ final 41 games last season after the sides were unable to strike a deal.
Kerr said his concern is “where a guy is perfectly healthy and has a couple years left on his deal and says, ‘I want to leave.’
“If you come to an agreement with the team that, hey, it’s probably best for us to part ways, that’s one thing,” Kerr said on the podcast. “But the Davis stuff was really kind of groundbreaking – and hopefully not a trend, because it’s bad for the league.”
Multiple Twitter users responded to remind Perkins that Durant signed with the Warriors as a free agent. He said those moves – signing Durant in particular – created too much of an unbalanced playing field. He tweeted, “Kerr said AD forcing a trade was bad for the league, so I guess KD signing with a 73-9 team was great for the league huh?”