Former NBA players and current ESPN analysts JJ Redick and Kendrick Perkins were at the center of a rather tense exchange on Tuesday morning’s edition of First Take.
During a segment about MVP front-runner Nikola Jokić, Redick jumped into the conversation to make a comment about how he felt the show had pushed “narratives that do not exist in reality” as it pertained to race being a factor in this year’s discussion about the MVP candidates.
“Stephen A. [Smith], I mean no offense to you. I mean no offense to First Take. Because I think this show is extremely valuable. It is an honor to be on this desk every day. It really is, but what we’ve just witnessed is the problem with this show,” Redick started. “Where we create narratives that do not exist in reality.
“The implication, what you are implying, that the white voters that vote on NBA [awards] are racist. That they favor white people,” Redick continued as Perkins began to interject. “You just said that. Yes you did.”
Perkins started to shake his head and protest that he did not make any such implication as Redick tried to complete his point. Eventually, the former NBA big man said he “stated the facts” in previous remarks that he made on the subject of this year’s MVP race and MVP voting.
As Redick and Perkins continued to talk over each other, Smith finally interrupted to encourage them to make their points “one at a time.”
The full segment of debate between Redick and Perkins can be found here.
Redick’s point comes after Perkins appeared on the ESPN morning show last week to discuss Jokić being the front-runner for the award. He stated Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash and Jokić are the only players since 1990 to have won the MVP award without finishing in the top 10 in the league in scoring before seemingly attempting to point out a similarity among the three players.
“What do those guys have in common? I’ll let it sit there and marinate. You think about it,” Perkins said last week on the show. “So that’s my whole thing. Why do we move the goal posts for certain people, but for others we don’t?”
Redick addressed that specific argument from Perkins earlier in the segment on Tuesday, pointing out that his colleague had been selective in choosing 1990 as the benchmark year to avoid roping in Lakers great Magic Johnson, a three-time MVP winner. Johnson won the award in ’87, ’89 and ’90 and finished 10th, 15th and 18th in scoring during each of those respective years.
Perkins, who also accused Jokić of “stat-padding” during a show last week, was right that the Nuggets’ big man finished 12th in scoring when he won the MVP for the 2020–21 season. However, last year Jokić finished sixth in the NBA in points per game.
This year, the two-time defending MVP has averaged 24.4 points, a career-high 10.0 assists and 11.8 rebounds per game while leading Denver to the best record (46–19) in the Western Conference. Jokić, along with Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo and Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid, are widely considered to be the leading candidates to win this season’s top individual honor.
