A failed reunion between the championship-winning head coach from the 2008 Boston Celtics, Doc Rivers, and his starting center, Kendrick Perkins, almost happened with the Los Angeles Clippers in 2015 according to the big man during a recent episode of Patrick Beverley’s Pat Bev Pod.
“Doc tried to actually get me over there,” Perkins said (h/t All Clippers). “When I got waived from OKC, Doc was like, ‘Perk, man I need you over here.’ I chose to go to Cleveland with Ty Lue, but I see why Doc wanted me over there, because they needed a leader in that locker room, it was too much individual stuff going on.” Inside Clippers’ Joey Linn believes there’s a chance Rivers would’ve given Perkins minutes.
“After Perkins was waived by OKC, he played just 55 more NBA games,” Linn prefaced before saying, “While he would have theoretically served as a locker room presence for the Clippers, it’s not unlikely that Rivers would have given him some rotation minutes as well.”
A 2008 Boston Celtics reunion became the most infamous NBA trade blunder
Billy King’s decision to trade the farm for Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett gave the Brooklyn Nets one playoff victory while the former gave his first non-Cs team just one season and the latter a season and a half. That decision, which ultimately gave the Boston Celtics the draft picks that landed Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, is one of NBA front office history’s worst.
Unlike Perkins on a veteran’s minimum deal after a release mid-season, this deal had major consequences: the Nets were set back years while the Celtics were set on the wing with two potentially generational talents. At the end of the day, King and Co., all obviously fired from the Nets organization at this point, wish that they would’ve passed on this one.