Hoops Habit
Fansided

NBA: 30 best careers from players who skipped college

By Josh Cornelissen

LeBron James, Miami Heat and Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers. Photo by Victor Decolongon/Getty Images
LeBron James, Miami Heat and Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers. Photo by Victor Decolongon/Getty Images /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
12 of 31
Next
Boston Celtics
Boston Celtics, Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images /

30 best careers from players who skipped college – 20. Kendrick Perkins

LeBron James went first overall in the 2003 NBA Draft and went on to win Rookie of the Year. Four other high school players were drafted that year, including Kendrick Perkins, and they combined to play just 82 minutes that season. Perkins played just 35 of those, appearing in 10 games for the Boston Celtics.

An absolute stud in high school as a bruising center, Perkins was ranked as a top-10 player nationally and committed to the Memphis Tigers before making the jump right into the NBA. He was the 27th pick of the draft, flipped in a draft day trade to the Celtics.

It was a slow developmental path for Perkins, who had to acclimate from offensive focal point in high school to defensive role player in the NBA. He earned time not because he used to average 27 points per game in high school, but because he didn’t take crap from anyone. He was the Celtics’ “enforcer” and they deployed him whenever necessary.

From there, Perkins grew into a key starter for a team that featured four All-Stars in Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo. The Celtics would win the title in 2008 with Perkins as a starter, and come close in 2010. Perkins went down with a knee injury in Game 6 and missed Game 7 of the NBA Finals in 2010 which Boston lost to the Los Angeles Lakers. It is famously said that the starting lineup of Rondo, Allen, Pierce, Garnett and Perkins never lost a playoff series.

Needing to mix things up, Boston traded Perkins to the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2011, and he became the starting center for a team on the rise. He again started in the NBA Finals, in a frontcourt that also featured Serge Ibaka and Kevin Durant.

Perkins continued to be a bruising, strong presence inside, but minor injuries and waning athleticism eroded his impact. He made it to the NBA Finals again with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2015, playing alongside fellow prep-to-pro players in LeBron James and J.R. Smith. After a few more stops he retired in 2018 and is applying his brusque nature to a flourishing media career.