It wasn’t a trade that happened, but the one that didn’t happen. And it still haunts Kendrick Perkins.
Discussing the most unexpected trades late in their NBA careers with Channing Frye, Richard Jefferson, and Allie Clifton on Road Trippin’, Perk expressed nearly as much disdain for a former New Orleans Pelicans executive as he does — or at least did have — for Charles Barkley.
“Mine was the trade that didn’t happen,” Perkins began. “So, I’m playing for the Pelicans, and it probably cost me a championship, to be honest with you. Either way, it did. So, I’m playing with the Pelicans and I’m backing up Alexis Ajinça, Ömer Aşık. I’m like a veteran in the locker room. This is when I developed the relationship with Anthony Davis, Jrue Holiday, etc. I’m with the Pelicans. We’re not winning sh*t.
“At the time, Dell Demps, by the way, I don’t have a lot of people that I hate. I despise him, and I wish the worst for him in the basketball space. And I’m not afraid to say it. I would tell him in his face. I can’t stand that motherf*cker. I can’t. He’s a liar. He done lied to so many people. He’s a snake, and I hate him.”
Why? Because at the 2015-16 trade deadline, everything was in motion. LeBron James rolled through New Orleans, telling his former Cleveland teammate, “We’re about to come get you, motherf*cker. We want you part of the team, part of the bench.”
Perkins was ready, waiting on that call.
Kevin Durant texted him, letting him know OKC wanted him back, too. Perk says Cleveland reportedly offered a second-round pick for him that year, the same year the Cavs erased a 3-1 Finals deficit to win it all in 2016, while OKC blew a 3-1 lead against Golden State. State. Both teams wanted him back as a veteran steadying presence in the locker room.
Except it never happened.
“Dell Demps comes to me and says, ‘I’m not trading you, Perk. We’re not trading you. We want you here for our locker room. You’re going to retire a Pelican,'” Perkins recalls the then-general manager telling him. “I’m like, ‘Oh, okay. So you telling me?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, we want you here for the next two years. Retire. We’re gonna have a plan.’ So, I’m like, ‘Oh sh*t, I get two more years without having to worry?’ Because at that point, I don’t know where my career is going to be honest with y’all. At that point, it’s like vet minimum, and once you get on vet minimum, you’re stuck on vet minimum.”
Both teams were ready to make a move, but it never happened. Perkins figured he was staying in New Orleans. He even turned down a vet-minimum offer from his hometown Rockets — a chance to play with James Harden — because he’d already given his word to Demps.
It was nearly the next season before Perkins heard from Demps, but he had to do the reaching out. That’s how he learned the plan, unbeknownst to him, had changed. The ugly side of the basketball business showed itself as Demps told him it was time to let the young guys run the show, and Perkins wouldn’t be coming back.
“I was like, ‘What the f*ck?'” Perkins said. “I cussed his motherf*cking ass out right there on the phone. I cussed him out. So, I hung up, and truth be told, right then, I had no more options. So, that next year, I was completely out of the league. Now, you done possibly cost me a championship. I did turn down one of the teams that had a deal on the table, and was ready to sign. At the beginning of free agency, the Rockets contacted me like, ‘Hey, we got a vet minimum on the table for you. Right now. Stay in Houston.’ That next year, I had no job.”
That phone call basically ended Perkins’ NBA career.
“I’m not blaming him for the direction my NBA career went, but he played a huge f*cking part,” Perk added. “And he took at least one or two years off of my career, while I could’ve been on the bench, averaging 1500 f*cking claps. But, instead, he shortened my career by being a snake and lying… I can’t stand him. He knows it. I saw him in Minnesota when they was playing, because he works in the front office in Minnesota, and the motherf*cker couldn’t even look at me. Straight up.”
Kendrick Perkins never got his final run. He ended up begging Ty Lue for a training camp invite just to keep his NBA hopes alive. That door stayed slightly open, but it never turned into the chance Demps had already taken away from him. While one door closed on his basketball career, another opened at ESPN.
And the man who effectively shut that door on his playing career still can’t look him in the eye.