Since the return of LeBron James, the Cleveland Cavaliers are facing arguably the roughest time to a championship.
With just two games left in the regular season, the team is sitting on the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference. If the Cavs do make it through the Eastern Conference, they would presumably face the Western Conference behemoths which are the Houston Rockets and the Golden State Warriors. The two are the most potent offenses in the basketball history.
The team’s latest answer to boosting their hopes of victory is signing an aging basketball player who has not played an NBA game since the year 2016. So as an effort to shore up an undersized frontline, Cavs have reportedly signed veteran big man Kendrick Perkins to the final spot on their playoff roster on Monday.
Perkins, 33, played last in NBA during the 2015-16 seasons with the New Orleans Pelicans, where he averaged 3.5 rebounds and 2.5 points in 37 games.
The Cavs released Perkins in the preseason after which he spent part of this year appearing in 27 games for the G League’s Canton Charge, where he averaged 7.2 rebounds and 8.7 points per contest in 21.2 minutes. Perkins was a late-season addition to the Cavs in the year 2015, where he played for the team in eight playoff games during the NBA finals and the eventual loss to the Warriors.
One cannot, however, expect much more of a role for Perkins in this postseason. Perkins, who has hit exactly zero three-pointers since the time he joined NBA in the year 2003, is the type of bruising player who has fallen out of favor in the modern NBA. Notably, Perkins is a former Boston Celtics big man who has apparently shown some off-court value to the Cavaliers during the teams 2015 run and in the preseason.
