Kendrick Perkins can tell his former friend to retire already and sleep peacefully at night. LeBron James has one less online friend and he sleeps just fine too. Neither parties show any urgency to meet, hash it out, bury the feud, and talk again. This is no estrangement like Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, or Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley, or Michael Jordan and half the Bulls organization (there seems to be a pattern here). This is something simmering and ready to boil over. That unfollow was just the surface. It appears that the greatness model comes with a warning label: Can hold grudges.

Perk pretty much said so while talking to Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson. “Bron is the type that once you get on his bad side, he holds grudges.”

The grudge manifested in March this year. Perk picked his ESPN colleague, Stephen A. Smith’s side in his separate, escalating feud with James. Before that Perkins and James, who were teammates for the five minutes Perk was in Cleveland, were relatively okay-ish. But Perkins’ comments irked James enough to unfollow him on Instagram in a manner everyone could see. Perk claims he responded by blocking Bron on his phone.

After that spat, Scoop asked him if there’s any hope for reconciliation. Perk was pretty honest about it. “No, I haven’t,” he said about him and Bron ever talking since then. He even explained the reason. “Me and him both bullheaded, right? Like, we both men…I’m not saying if we cross paths it’s going to be some blows or some disrespectful words. Hell, it might get us back on talking terms.”

Unlike SAS, who alleged he would clock James if they crossed paths, Perkins thinks he and James can be civil if they meet by sheer coincidence. Because neither is going to take the initiative.

“As of today? Nah. Like, I’m not reaching out to him. He damn sure ain’t reaching out to me. And guess what? He’s not losing sleep at night, and I’m not losing none either.”

Instead Perk’s hammering the nail in deeper.

LeBron James isn’t calling Kendrick Perkins for advice

After that whole ‘second decision’ debacle, Kendrick Perkins was going to have thoughts about LeBron James’ stunt. Those thoughts don’t need to be conveyed over Instagram DMs or on the phone where they are no longer on talking terms.

Unlike his ESPN colleagues, Perk loved the stunt.”It worked. Shoutout to Hennessy. Whoever came up with the concept. Shout out (to) Bron ’cause it got everybody f-—ing attention; everybody’s talking about Hennessy,” he said last week. A little unexpected but the Celtics champ does reiterate their feud would not change his respect for James as a player.

Perkins also idolizes Charles Barkley, who remained blunt about his opinions at the cost of his friendship with Michael Jordan. Perk actually told Scoop B, “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 Mike… Jordan, right? They were real close friends as players. Something happened throughout through their post-career. They haven’t buried the hatchets.” 

Yet Chuck will put Jordan above Bron as recently as last week and Perk will still be blunt about James. As the Lakers star is sitting out the season opener due to sciatica, Perkins indirectly advised Bron to call it a day since Cooper Flagg is here to carry the torch.

“His body is telling him, ‘hey, I’ve been good to you, it’s time for you to be good to me, it’s time to shut it down,'” Perkins said on First Take. “Not right now, but at the end of this season, I feel like this should be LeBron’s last season, and he should really retire after this season. It’s nothing more for him to accomplish. He accomplished everything.”

Something tells us Bron’s not taking any advice from Perk.