Perkins wrote the book, and is talking about it
Kendrick Perkins has transformed himself from a journeyman center toward the end of his playing career to a wildly popular and opinioned basketball analyst.
The 38-year-old former Celtic decided to release his memoir, “The Education of Kendrick Perkins,” earlier this year to detail his life as a country boy in Texas raised by his grandparents after the murder of his mother who came to Boston as an 18-year-old to eventually help the Celtics win their first championship in 22 years.
Perkins played 14 NBA seasons, but his best years — when he was an enforcer, defensive stopper, and occasional scorer — were his first eight in Boston. He credits the city and the Celtics organization with helping him mature.
“When I thought about it, it was the right time,” Perkins told the Globe of writing his autobiography. “Post-career and I had a window of a year and half where I wasn’t doing anything. I wasn’t working and I felt like with me starting to be on television, becoming a TV personality. A lot of people who know me, know who I was as a person on the floor and then all of a sudden I’m in television, they’re like, ‘Perk, I didn’t know you had this much personality.’ I’m like there’s a lot to my story, about the death of your mom when you were 5.
“The difference between this memoir and others is not only did I tell my story, but I also gave basically education and we also dug into the rules of history, the history of Boston, the history or Beaumont, Texas, and got to the roots of everything. My locker-room experiences, the Hall of Famers that I played with and watched them grow.”
Perkins was drafted in 2003 by the Grizzlies and traded to the Celtics on draft night along with Marcus Banks.
Perkins was fresh out of Ozen High School in Beaumont, and in his Perk style, he revealed he did not arrive in Boston on a plane.
“I decided I was so country, I didn’t know nothing about shipping cars, and me and my friend George Davis
jumped in my truck and drove 30 hours to come here,” he said. “It was an instant culture change, whether it was from food, to just everyday living, the weather. You think about it and you have Southern hospitality, so when you walk into a store, you could pass by a complete stranger and they’re going to speak to you. It’s not like that in Boston. Everybody is going their own separate ways and it don’t really have anything to do with racism, it’s just people are on their own path. I had to get adjusted to that.”
Perkins said his Boston experience did not include racism. It took him time to get adjusted to the big-city lifestyle, but the Celtics created a support system for the young center, years prior to the arrival of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.
Perkins credited then-president of basketball operations Danny Ainge for serving as a mentor.
“I also talked about how so many guys report about racism in Boston, but I never experienced it here,” Perkins said. “I also talked about the racism from my end, more so than I did about Boston. Boston is what made me a man and I came in at the right time with new ownership, with Danny Ainge taking over the role, and I had a great group of guys that were the vets in the locker room, from Tony Delk, Walter McCarty, Eric Williams, Tony Battie.
They took me under their wing and showed me the ropes on how to be professional, when to go out, when not to go out, how to show up to the facility and be the last one to leave.”
Ainge used tough love on Perkins. The center was overweight in his early years and considered a project. He appeared in just 10 games as a rookie and then played a minor role in 2004-05, before becoming a starter during his third season.
“Danny instantly saw how hard I started working from Day 1 and he took a liking to me,” Perkins said. “I think that liking translated to real love because he was always brutally honest with me and he never let me get comfortable.
“There were times he told me, ‘Perk, I’m going out to find somebody to replace you.’ That was his job. But he would also sit down and mentor me and ask me what was going on with my everyday life. That meant a lot because once he got involved and the Celtics got involved and they guided me where you should be living, and we’re only a phone call away, and who’s around you? And start dropping some of the bad habits that you got. That’s what helped me even more.”
Perkins was devastated by the 2011 trade that sent him to Oklahoma City for Jeff Green, and Ainge has said it was one of the toughest deals he ever made.
“So many people asked me why I did my first book signing in Massachusetts, because I felt I developed as a man and developed as a player, and even getting married and having my first child, and it was also in that organization in this 8½ years,” he said. “Boston taught me everything on how to be a man. My grandparents did everything they could as far as raising me, but without ever having a father figure in my life, I needed guidance, especially when I got to this point. The organization as a whole did a great job.”