When Kendrick Perkins is doing any broadcast work for ESPN, he takes his role as an analyst in a serious way because he wants to make sure he does everything he can possibly do in his post-playing career as more opportunities have opened up for him.
Perkins was a guest on The Right Time with Bomani Jones podcast as they discussed Perkins’ new book, The Education of Kendrick Perkins: A Memoir. Perkins told Jones that he does still have regrets about not making the most of his playing career and he did not want to have any regrets about what he does in broadcasting.
“I had regrets. I still got regrets. I have regrets of what I didn’t do when I was playing and some of the offseasons I didn’t put as much into my craft as I should have. I’m not saying I could have been an All-Star caliber player, but I could have extended my career, I could have made more money, I could have added about 3-4 more years and I have regrets about that.
“When I came into this opportunity right here, I was like ‘I’m not having regrets in this. I’m about to put my all into it.’ If I have to got be up at five in the morning for a production meeting, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
Perkins understands that not many role players are going to get the chances in TV that a Hall-of-Famer might get and that’s why he wants to take advantage of every opportunity and not have any regret whatsoever.
“I take it seriously. In this career, I’m fortunate to be here. I wasn’t a Hall-of-Famer. When a Hall-of-Famer finishes their career, they roll the red carpet out. It’s not like that for a guy like me that was a role player. When I came into it and this opportunity kept getting bigger and the door started opening up even more, I’m like ‘I have to take advantage of it. Why can’t I make this next career better than my first career?’ I shouldn’t have no regrets.”
At the beginning of his career, Perkins did say he was concerned with how he sounded on-air, but then he realized that what he says about basketball is more important than how he sounds and that he should continue to be himself:
“I’m going to talk slow, I’m going to talk with broken English, but you get what the hell I am saying. We talking basketball. Damn it, this ain’t English class, we are talking basketball. I started taking that approach. All of a sudden, I starting taking those old school lines when you are sitting at the spades table or dominoes table with them old heads and they get to hit you with them punch lines. I’m like how can I put this into this game or put this into what I’m about to breakdown and I started taking these bars and putting them into my vocabulary. People started saying ‘Perk crazy, where are you coming up with that?’
“It took a little while for people to get adjusted to me, but when they did, they are like ‘We love what Perk is bringing to the table’. That just gave me more fuel to continue to be myself.”
All an audience wants is for the people breaking down the game to be themselves and give as much knowledge as they can, With Perkins now not worrying about how he sounds, he can be entertaining and provide the insight people are looking for about basketball.
