Charles Barkley rips Kendrick Perkins: 'You averaged five points a game, shut the hell up'

ClutchPoints: “(Kevin Durant) said, ‘Man, (we’re) about to lose (Harden)’… At the Olympics (LeBron James, Dwyane Wade), all those guys were telling James, ‘Bro, (you’re) too nice to be coming off the bench… You need to have your own team.’” — Kendrick Perkins -via Twitter / August 12, 2024

Kendrick Perkins recently told the story of how James Harden was influenced to leave the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2012. During the 2012 Olympics, Harden joined Team USA where he got to play alongside his then Thunder teammate Kevin Durant and other notable names like LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. While Harden’s talents were undeniable, he acted as a role player for OKC at the time. However, that all changed after his teammates gave him some advice. Perkins revealed that James, Wade, and some of Harden’s other teammates played a role in his trade to the Houston Rockets in the 2012-13 NBA season. The former NBA veteran said that Durant told him that Harden was leaving after winning the gold in the 2012 Olympics. True enough, the thick-bearded role player went on to become a superstar and changed the landscape of the league. -via Clutch Points / August 12, 2024

Kendrick Perkins: The greatest Scorer to ever lace them up! Kevin MF Durant -via Twitter @KendrickPerkins / July 28, 2024

Charles Barkley: America is still sexist. Well we can throw race in there too, they’re racist too. So it’s a lot of moving parts. I’m not a Donald Trump guy. I just think if you’re gonna be the president you need to act a certain way. Even if I disagree with your politics, you’re the president of the United States, you should be a gentleman and act a certain way. I’ve got to learn more about Kamala Harris’ policies. The border thing is a big deal to me. In some of these cities they’re getting benefits that Americans don’t get. That cannot happen under any circumstances! I’m all for immigration if it’s done the right way, but we just can’t have people jumping over here and giving them Health Care, putting them up, giving them stipends and things like that. That cannot happen, we got so many amazing people who bust their asses all the time, we need to be taking care of those people so she’s going to have to address the immigration thing for me. -via YouTube / August 15, 2024

Charles Barkley: ‘They let Nikola Jokic play slow. I think they should have played a lot faster and every time we say something now people go crazy… There’s no reason for him not to play Jayson Tatum. Tatum would have been the second-best player on Serbia, probably would have been the best player on France. So for him not to get any minutes in two games… Come on man, that wasn’t right, that wasn’t fair. If you’re going to the Olympics you want to play, you want to play. So I was disappointed Jayson didn’t get to play, I was disappointed Tyrese Haliburton didn’t get to play, especially early. If you want to shorten your rotation in the last couple games that’s fine, but them guys dedicated their summer to the United States. -via YouTube / August 15, 2024

Charles Barkley: They got Joker but the second-best player on their team was Bogdan Bogdanovic. Does Bogdanovic make the United States Olympic team? Under no circumstances he makes the Olympic team. I think they played too slow because you could see what Joker was doing. He was milking the clock, he would take the ball out of bounds and roll it up the court. They turned a 40-minute game basically into like a 35, 37-minute game. -via YouTube / August 15, 2024