Some people say there’s never been an NBA player quite like Victor Wembanyama, but maybe those people forgot about Kendrick Perkins.
While discussing Wembanyama’s impressive performance against the Dallas Mavericks last week on ESPN’s NBA Today, Perkins made one of his more surprising assessments as an analyst.
Kendrick Perkins on Victor Wembanyama “He’s a prime example of me” pic.twitter.com/wR4CM7rgSi
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) February 6, 2026
“Victor Wembanyama, he refused to let us put him in a box,” Perkins said. “People was complaining that we want him to go more inside, but he took those trey balls yesterday and he’s knocking them down. He’s a prime example of me.”
Perkins claiming Wembanyama is “a prime example of me” was met with immediate laughter from his NBA Today co-hosts. But he wasn’t joking.
“No, here’s why, because while everybody else is going right, I typically go left,” Perkins explained. “And that’s what he does.”
Despite the clarification, everyone on ESPN continued to get a good chuckle out of the statement. But still on a quest to prove Victor Wembanyama is like himself, Perkins was at it again Wednesday night on NBA Countdown, when he found one more similarity between the two centers.
A few minutes before the San Antonio Spurs tipped off their game against the Golden State Warriors, ESPN showed Wembanyama sitting on the bench with his shirt pulled up over his face. Brian Windhorst noted Wembanyama was likely doing “visualization,” something he’s a big believer in.
“He’s a big believer in visualization” – Brian Windhorst on Victor Wembanyama
Kendrick Perkins: “I was too!” https://t.co/A03SOphBdk pic.twitter.com/dgPzE3nZ2S
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) February 12, 2026
“I was too!” Perkins interjected. “I was too! Not on the bench, but you gotta manifest what you’re gonna do. You gotta think about some moments throughout the course of the game. It’s a real thing! Listen, people took it out of context last week when I said Victor and I are the same. I wasn’t talking about skills. I was talking about our mentality.”
Maybe Perkins wasn’t referring to their skills on the court, and maybe he can find some off-court similarities between himself and Wembanyama. But a prime example? You can almost always find similarities between two people, but a “prime example” implies there are more similarities than two people sharing a mindset or a love for red meat.
Based on everything we know about Perkins and Wembanyama, it’s hard to make claim one is a prime example of the other. That doesn’t mean they don’t have some similarities, but imagine how Perkins might react on First Take if Grayson Allen said Michael Jordan was a prime example of himself and tried to cite their shared competitiveness.