It’s a little difficult to picture Kendrick Perkins’ scowl next to anything except Kevin Garnett’s scowl.
But how about next to LeBron James’ scowl?
Perkins was 8th on our list of the 25 top free agents and there is going to be a lot of interest in him — in an NBA where you can’t touch lightning quick players on the perimeter you have to have a big that can protect the rim and alter those shots. Few are better at that than Perkins.
The Miami Heat need a guy like that and are going to go after him this summer (or whenever post lockout), according to Marc Spears at Yahoo.
It’s not going to be easy to get him. Miami — even if they don’t pick up the option on Mario Chalmers, and if James Jones, Eddie House, and Big Z opt out — have $63 million on the books already for next season. That is over the salary cap under the current system and certainly will be over the cap under whatever new system is devised by owners and players in a new CBA.
Which means Miami will not be allowed to offer much Perkins. In the current system the best they could do is the mid-level exception. Boston could offer more money in this system. The new one? Probably. And Perkins wants to stay in Boston, which makes luring him away hard.
But two things to take away. One is that Boston is going to have competition to keep Kendrick Perkins.
The other is that Pat Riley is going to go hard after the parts he knows the Heat need. They are contenders this season. Next season they will be better.