After Kevin Durant decided to sign with the Warriors in July, initial reports indicated that Russell Westbrook was "angry" with the way KD went about leaving the Thunder. According to those reports, KD didn’t personally tell Westbrook about his decision, which apparently left Westbrook with a bad taste in his mouth. And it seems Westbrook is still not happy with how everything went down this summer. Just last week at Thunder media day, he told reporters that he hasn’t spoken with KD since he decided to leave Oklahoma City.
That doesn’t sit real well with Kendrick Perkins. Perkins played with Durant and Westbrook in OKC from 2011 through 2015, so during his appearance on the latest episode of Adrian Wojnarowski’s "The Vertical Podcast with Woj," he shed a lot of light on the KD/Westbrook situation and said he’s sorry to hear that they’re no longer speaking. He also revealed that he thinks both players are going to "regret" the way that their time together ended. You can listen to the entire podcast here, but we’ve also picked some of Perkins’ best quotes and included them below. They should help you make some sense of the drama that’s been taking place with KD and Westbrook.
Perkins on KD and Westbrook not valuing one another:
Perkins on the alleged "beef" between KD and Westbrook:
Perkins on his plans to get KD and Westbrook to talk again sometime soon:
Perkins on how KD should have handled his free agency decision:
Perkins on why KD and Westbrook shouldn’t have any ongoing issues:
It’ll be interesting to see if Perkins follows through with his idea to get KD and Westbrook on the phone together at some point. If he does, he might be able to defuse things and get the two back on speaking terms. But if he doesn’t, something tells us this KD/Westbrook drama is going to continue for months and maybe even years to come.