Kendrick Perkins finalizes buyout with Jazz, will sign with Cleveland


Old friend Kendrick Perkins will be joining the Cleveland Cavaliers after being bought out by the Utah Jazz Saturday.

The big man will add frontcourt depth the Cavaliers desperately needed heading into the second half of the season.

Interestingly enough is how Cleveland recruited him. According to Royce Young of ESPN.com: "Perkins was recruited directly by LeBron James to pick the Cavs."

He certainly had other potential suitors. Chicago, San Antonio, New Orleans and the L.A. Clippers were all reportedly interested. But in the end Perk chose the chance to play with probably the only better player in the league than former teammate Kevin Durant.

The irony of all this, is Perkins and Lebron haven't had the best relationship as opponents. Back in 2012, Lebron took to twitter to pile on Perk after he was posterized by Blake Griffin in a regular season game. The tweets have since been deleted, but Lebron's entry:
Dunk of the Year! @blakegriffin just dunked on Kendrick Perkins so hard!!! Wow! I guess I'm No. 2 now. Move over #6



As you may remember from any of the times he's been called for a foul in the past, Kendrick tends to overreact to things. He did not take lightly to the tweet sent by James.

Via Marc Spears of Yahoo Sports, Perkins fired back:
You don't see Kobe [Bryant] tweeting," "You don't see Michael Jordan tweeting. If you're an elite player, plays like that don't excite you. At the end of the day, the guys who are playing for the right reasons who are trying to win championships are not worrying about one play. They also are not tweeting about themselves talking about going down to No. 2, I just feel [James] is always looking for attention and he wants the world to like him.

The above quote is one of the many reasons us Celtics fans loved Perkins. He is blunt and brutally honest on and off the floor. Never afraid to stand up for his teammates or himself no matter who is standing opposite him.



Perk has been demoted to a limited role this season with OKC, but he's still a valuable asset to have on the bench in Cleveland. I think this, plus the moves they've made recently (acquiring Shumpert/Mozgov/Smith) may have solidified them as a title contender. Before they just looked to frail on the inside. Kevin Love is as soft as a pillow on D and they needed to add some length down low. They got that in Mozgov, and now they've got some muscle as well in Perkins.

It's going to be a tough pill for Celtics fans to swallow seeing Perk suit up in a Cavs uniform next to Lebron. So before you have to watch that happen when the Celtics visit the Cavs on March 3rd, take a moment to bask in some of the good moments we had with Perk.



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Top photo - Cavsnation blog
Perk video- Chris Forsberg, ESPN
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