Brian Babineau/NBAE/Getty Images
The Thunder paid a pretty hefty price to get the big man they’ve always wanted. But they’ll have to wait a while before they get to see what he can give them.
Center Kendrick Perkins will miss two to three weeks with an MCL sprain according to Thunder coach Scott Brooks. Perkins injured the knee against the Golden State Warriors while he was still a member of the Boston Celtics.
The sprain is on his left knee, which isn’t the knee he had major reconstructive surgery following the NBA Finals last June. Previously, Celtics general manager Danny Ainge said Perkins would miss “a week or so” with the knee injury, but evidently the Thunder’s being a bit more cautious with their new acquisition.
Perkins has only played 12 games so far this season and hasn’t shown any signs of his injured knee bothering him. So this MCL sprain is likely not a big deal, but more just playing things on the safe side. Keep in mind, this Thunder medical staff likes to play things on the side of extreme caution (Tyson Chandler cough cough) so I wouldn’t worry about it. Perkins passed his physical and is entirely fine. If there was anything to actually worry about, Perkins wouldn’t have been formerly introduced.
The earliest Perkins could return according to the timetable would be March 13 against the Cavs. That would give him a month of action with the Thunder and 19 games. It’s worth the wait, trust me.
As evidenced by Dwight Howard pounding Oklahoma City Friday night for 40 points and 15 rebounds, the Thunder could definitely use the help now thoug. They are still getting the services of 6-10 center Nazr Mohammed, which will help. With that, rookie Cole Aldrich will also have a chance to play some rotation minutes as well as Nick Collison. But they’ll be shorthanded on the inside without Perkins and on top of that, that’s more time before the team gets to get on the floor and play together.
The Thunder didn’t get Perkins for the next two weeks though, so it’s really nothing more than just kind of a buzzkill. OKC fans are anxious to see the elusive big man they finally got and the guy that was worth giving up Jeff Green for. Plus there is some mild anxiety about Perkins’ health, so this makes things a little more uncomfortable. But for everyone already saying, “Looks like Boston knew what it was doing,” there isn’t anything to worry over. You really think the Thunder would follow through with this thing if Perkins’ health was actually a concern? I mean, you realize Sam Presti runs this organization, right?
In terms of good news, Perkins said at his introductory press conference that he likes the Thunder a lot and even asked his agent about coming to Oklahoma City as a free agent. So that’s at least something good to come from Saturday’s press conference, even if the injury news is a bit of a bummer.
Against the Lakers Sunday, OKC’s probable starting five is still Westbrook, Thabo, Durant, Collison and Ibaka.
Daniel Plainview :@Daniel HawaiiWhat you got against D Cook? We got him to shoot teh three and thats what he is finally doing, He took alot of the blame for teh blow out in Orlando, but i felt like that was misplaced. Durant and RW helped little. Im not giving up on cook yet.
I sure hope Nate Rob gets some minutes in with Westbrook, the speed will be frightening
My bad, I forgot about D Cook. Uhh... I guess Aldrich doesn't dress if we land a backup SF.
20% percent of the scoring is high when you got Westbrook and KD trying to score the 70-80% of the points. Again, I hope Iam wrong. But Iam more of a realist. Not much of a stat guy. I like to see things proven on the court.
@f5alcon
I understand, man. I was just kinda picking on you because you were the most recent person to post stats. Sorry. I'm gonna shut up and wait until our new players have a chance to show what they can do.
@f5alcon
I believe Harden is going show in the coming weeks why we drafted him no 3. I think for the remainder of the season he will avg 17-5-4.5. I do think Ibakas gonna suffer from some inconsistency. It mike take a little while to get the chemistry, but I think well be fine and better off. I do want to see Aldrich avg at least 10 min a game. He hustles and rebounds. I think he can almost avg a block a game even in the spot duty.
@TaoMaas
i know but everybody is acting like our offense is now the the worst in the league and somehow jeff green and krstic are contributing all these points and it just isnt true, they accounted for less than 25% of our points and the replacements can score.
@Daniel Hawaii
What you got against D Cook? We got him to shoot teh three and thats what he is finally doing, He took alot of the blame for teh blow out in Orlando, but i felt like that was misplaced. Durant and RW helped little. Im not giving up on cook yet.
I sure hope Nate Rob gets some minutes in with Westbrook, the speed will be frightening
neosoulsoldier :
Perk is worth the wait for you guys. Hate to lose him but I’m glad he landed with OKC. Hope you sign him. Tru KG disciple. A specialist in the art of bull-ball. Just what your locker room needs. You should match the Lakers 4 & 5 straight up. Would rather beat the Lakers but you will do.
First time here, Neo? If so, welcome. Thanks for the positive words. Hope Green and Neno do you guys right.
@f5alcon
If everything were reduced to paper percentages, there would be no mystery to assembling a championship NBA team. Add up the stats and "Voila!"...an NBA ring! It ain't that easy.
@okc baby
so westbrooks looked bad against the 3 and number 7 defenses in the league. green and nenad combine for 22.8 ppg(27.6/36) nazr+robinson 14.4 (29.9/36) even if nate doesnt play and having the new rotation mins harden should get around 2 more ppg not accounting for more attempts, same with serge, and assuming 20 mins for nazr he should put in 11, so that is 15 points, of the 22 lost, the new rotation players all shoot better percentages than green and krstic
I'm not worried about Perkins or Mohammed. They're fairly well-known commodities. They'll do fine. For me, the big question mark in this entire trade scenario is, "Is Serge ready for prime-time?" I think that because I belive the Thunder's problem was at PF...not at center. I missed the game on Friday because I was out of town, so I watched it last night. I cringed every time a quick pass bounced off of Serge's hands and went out of bounds. If he learns to catch those passes...we're golden. If not...we're going to look like the chumps in this recent trade.
@f5alcon
You ll see:) i hope you prove me wrong. Ibaka maybe better at D but we lost alot of our offense with the loss of Green and Nenad. We are short handed. Brooks is hard headed we are 1-2 demensional on offense. OUr D still sucks. Brooks will keep the same lineups. Westbrook is playing like garbage...........................................................
@Chris_Broussard
OKC and New Orleans interested in Jason Kapono if/when Philly buys him out
I would LOVE IT if we could get Jason Kapono. He can backup KD at the 3. We need a backup 3! Plus he's an outstanding shooter, which we desperately need.
PG: Westbrook/Maynor/Robinson
SG: Thabo/Harden/Robinson
SF: Durant/Kapono
PF: Ibaka/Collison
C: Perkins/Mohammed/Aldrich
Damn, that would be an awesome 12-man rotation.
Perk is worth the wait for you guys. Hate to lose him but I'm glad he landed with OKC. Hope you sign him. Tru KG disciple. A specialist in the art of bull-ball. Just what your locker room needs. You should match the Lakers 4 & 5 straight up. Would rather beat the Lakers but you will do.
ok annoyed of all the hatin on the clippers commentators, there are one of the few teams that isnt that biased towards their players, they constantly compliment opponents, and they are hilarious, and orl is better, that team went to the finals, we cant say anything till we make some playoff noise so ease up a bit
@okc baby
what else is? ibaka is better than green defending gasol, nazr is a better defender that krstic on bynum. westbrook will torch fisher, kobe is old thabo make actually be able to guard him.
Thabos not going to be the only problem tommorrow
@Keith
yeah, i think if we can survive the first 6 mins we will be ok, once harden comes in, kobe will have to guard him. It still wont be an easy game, but bynum is not howard and the lakers are not going to jack up 3s like the magic, a lot of normally calm posters panicked with this trade, expect us to lose home court, nazr is a better scorer than krstic, so that makes up some of the points green would have and harden will score more as well.
If we get 50+ from the rest of the team besides durant/westbrook we will win most games. We had what 8 wins without green this season, last game against the lakers green was 3/11 with 6 points 2 rebs, serge will do better than that.
@RWisMyFavThunder
Nazr isn't a bum, and like f5alcon said, just removing Green actually gives us a little bit of a leg up from our previous lineup. Starting Thabo was part of the reason KD couldn't do anything in the playoffs, so I hope that changes as well. I just hope KD and Russ aren't still out of whack over Jeff. Artest is going to maul KD and get away with it like he always does, but Russ at least needs to play like the superstar he showed the ability to be. If we start Thabo and it allows Kobe to guard Russ, I'm going to send Brooks and Thabo a letter covered in my niece's flu germs.
I live in Canada - and I'm finally getting an OKC game on TV. Hopefully we do well for such a rarity!
f5alcon :
i was thinking perkins and nazr are going to help our transition offense, with a solid defense with all 4 of our bigs we should get more blocks and more rebounds and opponents fg% at the rim should drop which means we can get out and run which is our strength.
agreed!
@RWisMyFavThunder
why are we getting killed? nazr is going to come off the bench and ibaka is a better matchup on gasol than green. green killed us against the lakers in the playoffs last year.
@okc baby
yeah i checked other rosters they are below average for starting units,4th lowest among playoff teams, but not the lowest by any stretch
So I hate the lineup tomorrow. It's going to suck to get killed on national TV again as well as the fact that Brooks will continue to start Thabo regardless. Is it wrong to pray for a mild injury that keeps a guy out for the rest of the season?
Want to see Perkins run the floor
They average well over 30 mpg
i was thinking perkins and nazr are going to help our transition offense, with a solid defense with all 4 of our bigs we should get more blocks and more rebounds and opponents fg% at the rim should drop which means we can get out and run which is our strength.
@okc baby
low mins, slow pace.
Just amazed how KG, Allen and Pierce stay so competitive. They must have found the fountain of youth and arent tellin
yet we beat boston without our "3rd best player" and Durant. Man im starting to think the whole Clipper organization is crap. Thier commentators are worse than BD, and GL. At least they're entertaining, but man these guys were boring.
miami cant pay perkins nor do i think he would do that to boston either, they are still his friends. Lebron doesnt always get what he wants.
the misinformation about green is pretty funny. stackhouse thinks he can guard guys like kaman.
Orlando is nothing without DH. When we get Perkins Thunder will cream them
Krstic had some games like this for us. He looked good.
wow i hate the Clippers commentators. They really think the Magic is better than us. We beat them with a offensive Center, and a SF turned PF. We almost came back with one project center, a scrub center, and two PFs. How exactly are they better?
so when Shaq does get back having Kristic playing like this as a back up, and green off the bench will be killer for them!
okc baby :
Got some young dudes, draft picks and still a finals contender. Not to shabby. Thunder vs Boston in the Finals:)
Kristic fits so much better in their system, and Green will get use to it.
Got some young dudes, draft picks and still a finals contender. Not to shabby. Thunder vs Boston in the Finals:)
Boston is a force when Shaq gets back
i take it back
Don't worry, with the new, lower cap (and maybe no middle-level), number of teams able to offer 7+M per contract will be just few , and I don't think that Perkins will be on the top of free agent list.
He could go somewhere else in sign&trade but Miami particularly has nothing to offer that anybody want (M.Miller, Haslem, J.Anthony, Pittman).
this game is over. No way the C
s let them back in
I dont believe Celtics are playing in LA.
Eggs Benedict :@dragonbug82
That’s what I figured. I hope he stays here if he plays well when we can pay him more money.
lol KP cares about basketball more than money but hes not ganna sign with the Cheap i mean Heat for 2 mil a year haha.
@dragonbug82
That's what I figured. I hope he stays here if he plays well when we can pay him more money.
@Eggs Benedict
actually i think their cap is pretty full.
Where was this Krstik? I've never seen him hussle on a switch like that.
dang Kristic doing good, but man he actually looks kinda badass in that Celtic uniform. He fits alot better with the C's kind of pace, and game.
Green looks skinny in a Celtic jersey. Man it just berly hit me that Green is a Celtic now. It feels wierd to see him n Kristic in those jerseys
West suks
@dragonbug82
can Miami offer him as much money as we can?