Kendrick Perkins accidentally exposed the NBA’s biggest problem during ESPN’s ‘First Take’

Kendrick Perkins said the quiet part out loud during ESPN First Take on Wednesday.

The NBA analyst was talking to Victor Wembanyama after the San Antonio Spurs star once again reminded everyone that he’s not a normal person (don’t call him a stranger unless you want Stan Van Gundy to yell).

2023 No. 1 overall pick scored 27 points, grabbed 17 rebounds and added five assists and three blocks to lead the Spurs to a Game 5 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, 126-97, on Tuesday night. The victory put San Antonio one win away from a trip to the Western Conference Finals.

Wembanyama is 7-foot-4, handles like a guard, shoots threes, and blocks shots. Right now he looks like the best player in the league. He is truly unlike anything basketball fans have ever seen, arguably a better Giannis Antetokounmpo than Giannis Antetokounmpo.

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That led Perkins, who has had some really bad ideas in the past, to an interesting conclusion.

The NBA is for international players.

“I thought American basketball was going backwards,” Perkins said. He pointed out that Antetokounmpo’s injury problems and Nikola Jokic’s slow decline this season (in Perkins’ opinion) have given the Americans a chance to return to the spotlight with the outside duo that has dominated the league in recent years.

Then Wembanyama arrived.

“Then all of a sudden, Wemby came in this last season and especially last night, and he showed us that no, it’s still for international players,” said Perkins. “International players have completely taken over our league.”

It’s not often that I find myself agreeing with Perkins, but this is one of those times. However, he did not go far enough. He accidentally pointed out one of the NBA’s biggest problems.

Perkins went on to tease recent MVP winners: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid, Jokic and, Jokic againGiannis Antetokounmpo and Giannis Antetokounmpo again. An American player has not won the league’s MVP award since 2018 (James Harden). It won’t happen this season either, as SGA is the heavy favorite to take home the award for the second season in a row.

The ESPN analyst then added that Wembanyama will be the best player on the floor “on both ends” in the next decade and could add his name to the list of foreign-born MVPs in the near future.

And, you’re probably right.

And that’s the problem with the NBA in America.

ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins says that international players have “completely taken over” the NBA, arguing that there is no prospect of Americans taking over the league’s top spot again in the next decade. (Arturo Holmes/Getty Images)

Not because international players are bad. On the contrary. They bring a lot of talent to the league and the game of basketball in general, including college hoops. That’s good for the NBA around the world. But it’s not good for the domestic league (although, foreign money fills the bank account in the same way, so the league may not care).

Americans love to exterminate Americans. This is not complicated, even though people in the sports media like to pretend it is.

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Look at hockey. For decades, hockey has struggled to capture the mainstream American sports fan because it never felt like an American sport. It was ruled by Canadians, Russians, Swedes, Finns and Czechs. Great players. It’s a good game. But to many casual American fans, it didn’t feel like us.

Then Team USA beat Canada for Olympic gold, and suddenly the whole conversation changed. Matthew Tkachuk, Jack Hughes, Connor Hellebuyck and other American stars did not end up winning. They make Americans feel like hockey belongs to them, too.

That is important.

The NHL didn’t change overnight. The rules have not changed. The snow was not big. The puck was not easy to follow. But when Americans saw the American stars beat Canada at their own game, the game felt different. And TV ratings have shown that the Olympics have increased American interest in the NHL.

The NBA is facing the opposite problem.

For years, the NBA had a very simple domestic marketing formula: sell America’s greatness.

Magic Johnson. Larry Bird. Michael Jordan. Shaquille O’Neal. Kobe Bryant. LeBron James. Steph Curry. Kevin Durant. Dwyane Wade. Charles Barkley. Allen Iverson.

Yes, the league was full of international stars, and some were great players. But the face of the league was almost always American. Specifically, the NBA’s cultural power is built largely on the machinations of black Americans.

LeBron James has been the face of the NBA for over 20 years, but the streak is coming to an end. (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

That’s why one of the most lazy narratives in basketball has been that the NBA, or the NBA media, secretly wants European stars because some of them are White.

That is false and not supported by a shred of evidence.

Do people really think that American fans prefer Nikola Jokic because he is white over LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson or Anthony Edwards? Come on. It’s easy to argue that because when Jokic’s Nuggets won the NBA Finals in 2023, it was one of the lowest-rated series ever (except for the years affected by COVID). When Curry’s Warriors dominated the league, the NBA Finals averaged 20 million viewers.

In addition, some of the best international players in the league are white. Black is black. Giannis Black. Embiid is black. Shai is black. This is not taking over “white Europe”. The whole world is taken over.

Second, American fans have always connected more with American stars, regardless of race. Black American NBA stars (really, all black elite athletes) have been among the most popular, popular and marketable athletes in this country’s history. Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods are two of the most recognizable figures in American pop culture.

The issue is not race.

The problem is communication.

Wembanyama, Jokic, Luka Doncic and Giannis are amazing players.

But they don’t feel like American sports heroes. Because they are not.

That might make some people uncomfortable. You shouldn’t. It’s just the truth.

Greek-born Giannis Antetokounmpo has won two NBA MVP awards and no American-born player has won the award since 2018. (Chris Gardner/Getty Images)

The popularity of sports is tribal. It belongs to the region. It’s national. It’s emotional. And in the United States, fans are still looking for a reason to feel like the league belongs to them.

Perkins captured that in one phrase: “our league.”

He didn’t say “league.” He said “our league.”

For many American basketball fans, the NBA increasingly doesn’t feel like “our league” at all. It feels like a global league that plays most of its games in the United States.

Maybe the NBA is okay with that. Perhaps Adam Silver and league executives are looking at international growth, global merchandise sales and broadcast numbers and regression. Perhaps they believe that losing American cultural attachments is worth gaining a greater global presence.

That is a business decision.

But don’t be confused when the average American sports fan feels the same attachment to a league where the conversation of the best player is dominated by a Serbian, a Slovenian, a Greek-Nigerian, a French, a Cameroonian and a Canadian.

Although they are beautiful, they are not born in America.

And that is important in the United States.

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There is no hope that we will take our league,” he said. “There is no hope, at least in the next 10 years, that we will bring our league back.”

That’s a strange thing to hear from an ESPN NBA analyst.

It is also true.

Wembanyama is not the NBA’s problem. He may be the future of basketball in terms of play and talent.

But if the future face of the NBA isn’t an American superstar, then the league has to accept what comes with that.

Global compatibility may increase.

America’s emotional investment may not materialize.

And in a league built in America, that’s a bigger problem than many are willing to admit.