Maybe Perk is not the most reliable narrator in this story. Kendrick Perkins was Paul Pierce’s teammate at the peak of the Celtics’ rivalry with the Miami Big 3. And he was briefly LeBron James’ friend till it soured this year. He’s not exactly unbiased. But he knows them both well enough to know this feud isn’t going to fade away. Unlike his tiff with Perkins, LeBron’s animosity with Pierce runs deep. It predates any feud the Lakers star has with Perkins, Stephen A. Smith, Brian Windhorst, Skip Bayless… (phew, that’s a long list). It’s steeped in rivalry and fierce competitiveness even after one of them is long retired.

Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson asked Kendrick Perkins what made Paul Pierce’s rivalry different from his rivalry with Kobe Bryant. For starters, Kobe and Pierce weren’t like Magic and Bird. Pierce and Bron though…

“Well, you got to realize this beef with LeBron and Paul didn’t just happen overnight, and it didn’t happen through those runs through the playoffs,” Perkins said, discounting the history between the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat. That era – including the 2012 ECF which Miami won, Ray Allen’s jump to Miami which made him public enemy #1 in Boston, and a lot of trash talk – was an escalation of what already existed between Pierce and James.

It started during ‘The Chosen One’s’ rookie season in Cleveland. “I believe we was down in Columbus, Ohio. It was a pre-season game. They got into it. You probably haven’t heard the story about this. And, you know, Paul said something to LeBron, LeBron said something to Paul. Paul kind of spat at that bench or whatever. And that’s what the… and ever since then, that was it. It was always tension between those two.”

Perkins was the Celtics rookie that year and is the only one who’s ever talked about this alleged incident. There’s almost no other witness or video of this happening. Although The Truth confirmed it in 2020.

“You know the crazy thing about it was, it was a preseason game, that didn’t mean anything,” Pierce said during his tenure as an ESPN analyst. “I don’t know, me and LeBron going back and forth, the bench is yelling at something. And I look over at the bench, and I’m like, ‘That’s why y’all are on the bench’ or something, and I spit at them. And I’m not sure if I hit somebody or not, but I spit in that direction. And then it just kind of — tempers flared up, the next thing you know, we were in the hallway, it was about to go down. That’s just kind of, like, the basis of everything.”

Pierce reluctantly admitted he spat ‘in that direction’ because Perkins brought it up. He knows it’s not a great look and was glad he didn’t get caught or fined.

Whenever Perkins narrated this story in the past, it slightly colored fans’ opinion on Pierce when he dropped an outlandish Bron take. This incident is provocative enough for Perk to squash the possibility of any reconciliation between his former teammates.

Kendrick Perkins has a prediction for his former teammates

Before he became estranged from LeBron James too, Kendrick Perkins was briefly his teammate in 2015, during Bron’s second stint. They were seemingly chill till Perk took Stephen A. Smith’s side in his confrontational beef with James. The 4x NBA champ unfollowed Perk and the latter blocked him on all contacts.

This sounds a lot like when Charles Barkley criticized Michael Jordan’s management of the Hornets. By Chuck’s account, MJ called him, cussed him out, and ended this friendship long before his estrangement from Scottie Pippen. And they’re okay with that.

Perkins says James and Pierce are in the same boat. “I don’t know.” he told Scoop B about their possible reconciliation. “To be honest with you, we see a lot of people to this day that were close friends that hadn’t buried the hatchet yet, right? We see Barkley and [Michael] Jordan, right? They were real close friends as players. Something happened through their post-career. They haven’t buried the hatchets. So, I don’t know.”

For what it’s worth, Perk said Bron is as ‘bullheaded’ as himself and they wouldn’t be reconciling anytime soon either. But Perkins publicly maintains he respects King James as a player. He vouches the same for Pierce. (Even though Pierce has been calling on Bron to retire before that ‘second decision’ drama even happened.)

But given how this beef started two decades ago, Perkins would be very surprised if these players suddenly became friends. Frankly, so would we.