Kendrick Perkins’ hot takes are getting people a little too worked up.
The former NBA champion and ESPN personality revealed on the “Road Trippin’” podcast with Channing Frye that Milwaukee Bucks fans went wild after he said that Giannis Antetokounmpo was the “Robin” to Khris Middleton’s “Batman” during the 2021 NBA Finals.
“I started getting a death threat,” Perkins said during the podcast. “It was going to my wife’s account. This dude was sending me threat after threat. ‘I am going to kill your kids. I know where you stay. I am going to murder you.’ This was real life.”
The fan took some serious umbrage at Perkins’ characterization of Antetokounmpo and Middleton’s roles — in Batman lingo — on the 2021 Bucks.
“I’ve been preaching time and time again that [Middleton is] the Batman of this team and Giannis is the Robin and look,” Perkins said in 2021, “it’s okay to be the Robin — people think that’s a bad thing. It’s not.”
Perkins shared the messages with ESPN and who helped identify the sender, who was later arrested.
“They found the dude and locked him up,” the ex-Celtics star said. “This is true, and he was like, ‘No, no. I wasn’t serious.’ Like, nah, motherf–ker, you’re going to jail. Don’t play like that.”
Perkins’ harrowing tale came as part of a broader discussion about gambling in basketball, in particular regarding Michael Porter Jr., who sent a scary warning to the NBA about fixing player prop bets.
Porter’s brother, Jontay, was banished from the NBA for manipulating his player props, pulling himself out of games with mystery illnesses or injuries so his Under wagers would win.
The new Nets’ star expressed displeasure about death threats he had received from NBA bettors who threatened to kill him for not helping them win their bet.
Perkins added some advice for Porter if he’s receiving threats: tell the NBA and let them deal with it in the same way ESPN did for him.
“The work might be about basketball,” Perkins said, “but the stakes can be much higher.”
