During an interview back in September, former Thunder player Kendrick Perkins talked about the beef between Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook and said that his goal was to get them to talk again. He played with Durant and Westbrook in Oklahoma City from 2011 through 2015 and said he was bothered by the fact that they had stopped communicating with one another after spending about a decade playing together.
"That don’t sit well with me that they are actually not talking," he said. "It’s not a beef they’re supposed to have."
On Monday night, Perkins appeared on TNT’s "Area 21" alongside a handful of his former Celtics teammates, including Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Rajon Rondo, and while they spent most of their time talking about their old Boston teams, Perkins also touched on the Durant and Westbrook dynamic. And at one point, he revealed that Durant and Westbrook are "back on talking terms." He didn’t get into too many specifics, but Perkins said that the two talked in early April after Westbrook broke Oscar Robertson’s single-season triple-double record.
"I think the night that Russ actually broke the record, I had texted KD," Perkins said. "The next day, he was talking about something and he sent me a text and was like, 'Me and Russ had a nice conversation.' The media don’t even know nothing about it, but I just let it be known that they’re back on talking terms, the differences aside."
Perkins also talked about how he thinks Durant and Westbrook could be teammates again one day. He said he wouldn’t put it past Durant to win a title with the Warriors and then return to the Thunder, much like LeBron James won titles with the Heat before going back to the Cavaliers.
"I wouldn’t be surprised if KD makes a little run. I wouldn’t be surprised if he goes back to Oklahoma," he said. "Because in my opinion, I don’t think Russ is going anywhere. He’s that type of guy. He just wants to stick it out, and he just wants you to give him those pieces and he just wants to roll with it. He’s not going and trying to run and chase [titles]. And one thing about it, he’s not begging nobody to come play with him."
It’s been a while since we’ve heard about any drama surrounding Durant and Westbrook. They connected for an alley-up during the NBA All-Star Game in February, and since then, the only evidence of any beef between them has involved their family members and not them. So it’s not hard to believe that they’re "back on talking terms" as Perkins said. They’ll probably never be as close as they once were, but it sounds like, at the very least, they are prepared to be civil towards one another moving forward.
