A former girlfriend once said to someone else about me, "He always admits when he's wrong." It made me proud. 

Many times in the last 20 years of writing this blog I have had to confess error as we say in the law and admit that I was wrong. It is noble to admit when one is wrong but it's also an admission that you were wrong. It's not as good as being right. Of course we all are wrong at some points in our life but I think that it is less noble to confess error when the error is made in print than when it is spoken. We are particularly uncensored and intemperate when we speak than when we write, and I am a writer.

NBA analyst and former player (and teammate of Kevin Durant) Kendrick Perkins made some statements on the air after the Brooklyn "Nets" were humiliated by Boston tonight. I have edited the screenshots to reflect what Perkins really said rather than what the Swahili-speaking person who must have been captioning Perk's statements scrolled beneath:

 

I agree with the above.

 

I didn't see the game; extraordinary claims, and this is one, require extraordinary evidence, and that claim on Durant is very surprising. 

But the in-studio commentator, House I think I heard Perkins say, Somebody House, was heard off screen to affirm Perkins that Durant had no interest in playing the game, which I took as extraordinary confirmation for the extraordinary claim.

 

Durant was not engaged.

 

 

         Durant and Kyrie Irving "both quit." The extraordinary claim is repeated as to Durant and expanded to include Irving.

I took Perkins' statements as truly and sincerely expressed by an NBA insider and analyst.

But then on his personal Twitter account Perkins wrote this:

Kendrick Perkins

@KendrickPerkins

 

I take that back. I’m not going to disrespect KD like that by saying he QUIT… but I’ll say He’s TAPPED OUT. Carry the hell on…

 

9:54 PM · Apr 23, 2022·Twitter for iPhone

 

 

Okay, I accept. I do think tapping out (when a clearly beaten fighter taps (because he is in a dangerous choke hold and cannot speak and is about to lose consciousness on his opponent's shoulder to give up) is more accurate, fairer, more generous--but I did not see the game. I had noted before game 3, and in game 3, that Steve Nash, the "Nets" coach, was riding Durant particularly, but Irving too, extremely hard. Kevin played all but 2 minutes of a game tonight where he was clearly ineffective. He's 33 years old, is built like a bean pole and has had injuries that caused him to miss the entire 2019/20 season and 47 games this season. The man is exhausted, as other analysts have said, which is compelling reason why, if he "tapped out," he did tap out. 

 

I accept Perkins' retraction. I hope he does it on the air, in the same medium in which the now retracted statements were made, and we need to hear from Somebody House on his amen that Durant "had no interest whatsoever in playing this game," the most damning statement Perkins made by far.