Wyc Grousbeck explained why Kendrick Perkins wasn’t invited to Celtics’ championship parade
"I had family members of players saying if that guy is in the parade, we're not in the parade."
Kendrick Perkins played eight seasons with the Celtics and helped the team win a title in 2008, but he wasn’t welcome at last year’s championship parade.
Celtics governor Wyc Grousbeck explained the decision during a recent episode of ex-Celtics guard Jeff Teague’s “Club 520” podcast.
“He wasn’t invited to our parade last year, that is true, because he had been giving people a lot of [expletive],” Grousbeck said. “So, I had family members of players saying if that guy is in the parade, we’re not in the parade. I said well, OK, you win.”
Perkins, who is now an analyst at ESPN, has been unafraid to ruffle feathers within the Celtics’ organization. He levied some harsh criticism of Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla in January of 2024.
“They have two Joe Mazzullas,” Perkins said at the time. “They have the one that got the philosophy of we’re going to get up more 3s than you. When they hit them, he looks great. Then you have the other Joe Mazzulla, who just stands over there, and you wonder. If you take his brain out and you put it in a bird, the bird is going to start flying backwards. You got that Joe Mazzulla.”
Mazzulla referenced Perkins comments during a press conference later than month.
During the 2022 NBA Finals, which the Celtics eventually lost to Golden State, Perkins tweeted that Jayson Tatum looked “scared as hell.”
Perkins called former teammate and current NBC Sports Boston analyst Brian Scalabrine a “coward” last June after Scalabrine said that Perkins’ relationships with the current Celtics is “not really an open arms thing.”
Perkins said he was busy and that he would have turned down an invitation if he had gotten one “nine times out of ten.”
Several of Perkins’s former teammates, including Paul Pierce and Scalabrine, were at the parade.
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