Intense Fight Breaks Out on Live TV as James Harden Gets Destroyed by His Own Former Teammate

James Harden has struggled since joining the Philadelphia 76ers. The prospect of his partnership with Joel Embiid looked promising but has not shown any surge to be influential. Patrick Beverley on ESPN had come to Harden’s defense. Moreover, he was quick to take jab after jab at a longtime rival and another player who has struggled by his standards, Chris Paul. 

While the regular season was filled with little stoppages for Chris Paul, he was not up to the mark in the playoffs either, at least according to his reputation and standards. Pat Bev did not waste any time. But about a week later, a former teammate of James Harden confronted Pat Bev about his bias towards Harden.

“I watched you come on here on Monday and I watch you sit up here and I watch you dismantle CP3. I watch you give CP3 the business. You didn’t tell a lie, but you didn’t tell the truth about James Harden, your homie. See when you come up on TV and now you’re taking yourself out of the basketball space. And you coming on here and you being the NBA analyst, homies don’t matter no more. You got to come over here and speak the truth. And you was telling the lie.” Kendrick Perkins confronted Pat Bev.

DIVE DEEPER

“The truth was nowhere near. For the simple fact that if you’re going to sit up here and tell us that James Harden deserved a super max after the performance and after what he did in Philadelphia this past season you were telling a lie.” said Kendrick Perkins.

Kendrick Perkins defends Chris Paul with further criticism on James Harden

Former teammate of Harden, Kendrick Perkins was not finished in his pursuit of making Pat Bev realize he was unfair to Chris Paul. He continued and said that Patrick Beverley asked Stephen A. Smith why he didn’t give the same energy to CP3 that they give to Ben Simmons. While on the other hand, Pat Bev did not give the same energy to Harden that he gave to CP3 two days earlier, either. Perkins blamed Patrick for being biased towards his friend, James Harden.

Pat Bev put up a point about Harden getting an average of 22 points, 7.7 rebounds and 10.3 assists in the regular season. Kendrick replied with the fact that he was talking about the games that mattered the most, and those are the playoffs. Harden averaged 18.6 points in the playoffs.

WATCH THIS STORY: 3 times Harden choked in the playoffs.

And except one match with 24 points, Harden could not contribute much towards the 76ers playoff dream. Similarly, CP3 has had a season to forget as well, but the fact that Pat Bev believed Harden deserved a supermax deal did not sit right with Kendrick.

Pat Bev tried to get back to his point and said that he was talking about James Harden defensively. He said that he meant Harden was not “getting cooked”. But Kendrick Perkins continued to make his point that Harden surely deserved a contract extension. Moreover, Harden is already making a lot of money and a supermax deal would mean that he would be among the highest paid players. So Kendrick said that Harden simply did not deserve a supermax deal because of the ineffective season and underwhelming performances. 

Do you think Harden deserves a supermax deal?

Source: | This article originally belongs to Essentially Sports