NBA Should Revoke Kendrick Perkins' MVP Vote Over Anti-Jokic Bias

Imagine an NFL MVP voter refusing to vote for Patrick Mahomes. Or an MLB voter who won't consider Shohei Ohtani. In either scenario, there would be calls to remove that voter from the pool immediately. And that same standard should apply to the NBA MVP voting process.

Nikola Jokic is the best player in the NBA. It's not close and hasn't been close in nearly five seasons. Even writers Andscape, an anti-white sports website, have admitted the gap between the white Euro and the second-best player in the NBA is on par with the gap between LeBron James in his prime and the rest of the NBA. 

And yet, one particular NBA MVP has essentially disqualified Jokic from MVP consideration every single season.

ESPN's Kendrick Perkins vendetta against Jokic drew attention in 2023 when he falsely accused MVP voters of pro-white bias and dared them to prove they were not racist by voting against Jokic, despite Jokic having the best season in the NBA. 

However, Perkins' issues with Jokic run deeper than that. Public voting ballots show that Perkins has never voted for Jokic. Not in any of the three seasons that Jokic won the award (2021, 2022, and 2024) and certainly not in the year his race-hustling cost Jokic the award (2023). Perkins has made clear he will not vote for Jokic this season, no matter what happens in the remaining weeks, but instead for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

What's more, the number of players Perkins has named the "NBA's best" over the past three seasons is comically long. The list includes – at least  – Gilgeous-Alexander, Joel Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Anthony Edwards, Jalen Brunson, Kevin Durant and Steph Curry. In other words, nearly every top player in the NBA but Jokic.

Imagine that.

Just this week, Perkins declared 40-year-old LeBron James better than Jokic.

Prediction: By the start of the playoffs, Perkins will declare someone new the best player in the game. And it won't be Jokic (or Luka Doncic).

We get it. Perkins doesn't like Jokic and, by all accounts, has issues with white players. Like Gilbert Arenas, Perkins believes that white hoppers are inherently inferior and can only compete with black players if propped up by great white hope-ism, as a recent ESPN article explained.

Still, if ESPN is going to allow Perkins to be a racist idiot on-air, the NBA ought to revoke his vote. There are only 100 voters per season. A voter allowing his racial animus to dictate his picks undermines the entire process.

Perkins lacks the emotional maturity to be a voter. He proved that when he lashed out at random Twitter accounts, calling white people "privileged" in a now-deleted but unhinged tirade.

This is not even an avocation for Jokic to win the award this season. Gilgeous-Alexander is a worthy candidate, leading the league in scoring and the Thunder to a 12-game lead in the West. 

If SGA wins the award, fine. The issue is that Perkins has already disqualified Jokic from consideration.

As good as SGA has been, Jokic has put forth another all-time season. Literally. He currently ranks top three in points, rebounds and assists. Should that hold, Jokic would become the first player ever to finish top three in all three categories.

Only two players in NBA history have ever averaged a triple-double in a season: Russell Westbrook and Oscar Robertson. Jokic will be the third. On Friday, Jokic became the first player in NBA history to post at least 30 points, 20 rebounds, and 20 assists. That's two triple-doubles in the same game. 

Per the numbers, no player has ever impacted their team more on offense than Jokic has this season.

Perkins must just fume watching Jokic make history, season after season.

Granted, Perkins is not the only MVP voter who has disqualified Jokic. Stephen A. Smith also said on Sunday he "doesn't care what Jokic does" because he wants Gilgeous-Alexander to win the award.

Again, imagine if voters made those same statements about Mahomes or Ohtani, the two best players in their respective sports. Also, since when are Perkins and Smith "journalists," the required qualification to have an MVP vote?

Kendrick Perkins did not respond to a request for comment by OutKick for this article.