Centering in on Kendrick Perkins

I love Twitter.

No, really. Love doesn’t properly describe my relationship with Twitter. Nor does obsessed. I honestly have no idea what I did before Twitter. How did us sports fans live? I honestly am at a loss for words.

How does Twitter have anything to do with my favorite Celtic, Kendrick Perkins, you ask?

The other night, during the Mavericks game, I was following a discussion on Twitter between Chad Finn of the Boston Globe (twitter handle: @GlobeChadFinn), Paul Flannery of WEEIcom (@Pflanns), and the guys at CelticsBlog.com (@celticsblog) regarding the game Perkins was having.  And I was drawn to a comment from the CelticsBlog guy, who said:

"

“Perkins is the new success story that every GM hangs onto when drafting project big men - but it took a lot of time.”

"

People sometimes forget that Perkins was drafted in 2003 (like… me). 2003? Do you know what also happened in 2003? Grand Theft Auto Vice City came out (ok, fair, its was October 2002, but who’s counting?).  Surely you remember. I know my college roommates and I do.  Just look at our transcripts from that semester. And the spring semester.

But honestly, 2003? Kendrick has been in the league for seven years now? Wow.

But the tweet about Perkins by the CelticsBlog guys made me wonder – just how hard is it to develop a young big man in the NBA these days? For every Kendrick Perkins, who took years to develop into the talent that he is, there’s a Dwight Howard or Chris Bosh, guys who were impact players almost immediately upon entry into the NBA.  Let’s take a look at some data, shall we? No, you say? Too bad, this is my post.

I went back and examined 10 years of NBA draft... READ MORE

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