Kendrick Perkins’ Outburst at AAU Game Sparks Controversy
Former NBA player and current ESPN NBA analyst, Kendrick Perkins, found himself in the middle of a heated incident during his son’s AAU game over the weekend. The event took place in Norman, Oklahoma, and was captured on video, showing Perkins lunging at an opposing team member.
Perkins claims he was defending the members of his YPG Perkins team after a non-basketball play by a player from the Swaveway Playaz team triggered his reaction. According to TMZ, the video showed Perkins shouting at the opposing team’s staff, requiring multiple people to hold him back.
The Norman Police, who were working as off-duty security at the event, helped resolve the situation. No criminal charges were filed against anyone involved.
After the video went viral, Perkins addressed the matter on his social media accounts, where he did not apologize for his behavior. He posted on X: “Damn right and it probably won’t be the last time! I’m going to protect every single kid in my organization like they’re my own.”
It is unclear which of his players Perkins was defending. His son, Kenxton, is a member of the team. Perkins later explained his side of the incident on ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ on his home network.
“It’s my organization. Right? Young Perkins Global. And we were in the tournament. It’s a heated game, you know, 17U, they’re going back and forth, whatever,” Perkins explained. “We end up winning the game. All right, cool. Well, the other team, they had this guy that’s like 7 foot, 400 pounds. After the game, he comes and he body slams one of my kids that play for my team.”
“As a responsible, you know, owner of the organization, I get up and I’m like, ‘hey man, y’all need to chill, you know, X, Y, Z.’ I’m grabbing my players. I tell the coach of the other team, I’m like, ‘hey bro, get your players. I got mine.’ He pop off ‘I ain’t getting nothing. I ain’t getting nothing. Who the hell are you?’ I’m like, bro, just get your players so I can get mine, we [can] get up out of here.”
“He got smart with me again. That’s when I got pissed off. I’m like, ‘bro, who the hell are you talking to?’ [he said] ‘I’m talking to you.’”
Perkins added, “Now, what people didn’t see was after that, we had a little exchange. Yeah, they held us back or whatever. Held them back. Held me back. And then afterwards, we dapped up. He said, my bad. I said, my bad. And we kept it moving.”
Later on the show, Perkins explained, “The kid that got slammed to the ground, his parents wasn’t at the game, so his parents trust me with their child. So I gotta protect that child as if he’s mine. I’m gonna stand up for him even though I didn’t go over there with bad intentions. I gotta make sure that that kid is okay and he make it back home to his parents.”
“He’s a young man, but again, he plays in my organization, so I gotta make sure by every means necessary that he’s safe.”
Perkins’ agent, Kennard McGuire, told TMZ, “Kendrick is very passionate about everything, especially when it involves his kids. We’re not going to waste water on an imaginary fire.”
This is not the first time Perkins has attracted headlines for his antics at AAU games. Back in 2023, Perkins was ejected from a game, with the coach explaining himself on the air with ESPN’s ‘NBA Today.’
“I’m trying to ask the ref a question on why would he eject one of my players and he would not talk to me and when he didn’t give me an answer, I blew a gasket,” Perkins explained at the time. “He tried to kick me out the game, I was like, ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ First of all, I done spent thousands of dollars to come to Vegas for this tournament. I’m not leaving the gym.”
He concluded, “At the end of the day, I was pissed off. I was just trying to ask him a question and he was ignoring me.”
