Round 7, pick 241
Kendrick Perkins PF/C
Kendrick Perkins is a very good and arguably great defender at the age of only 23. He has improved a lot on defense this year (and this is barley due to KG as Perkins rarley got double team help when defending the post) as he continued to lose a lot of weight and gained a ton of mobility/muscle. He also worked on his defense with Clifford Ray who has constantly improved all of our young bigmen.
Here are the very good/great bigmen Perkins has done a very good/great job on throughout this year:
Pau Gasol didn't play during the regular season but did a great job vs the playoffs, Andrew Bynum 2-7 4 pts and 2-2 8 pts, Yao Ming 7-20 19 pts (didn't play 2nd game), Tim Duncan 10-20 22 pts and 4-8 10 pts, Chris Kaman 3-6 12 pts (didn't play 2nd game), Rasheed Wallace 3-10 9 pts 7-16 16 pts (he guarded Rasheed durin the reg season and for some reason Doc put KG on Rasheed during most of the post season, but when Perk was on him during the postseason he did a great job as well), Andrew Bogut 1-3 4 pts (didn't play second game) What made this even more impressive is Perkins recieved practically no help from double teams on any of these guys (like I said above). In other words it was just straight up 1v1 defense.
His DRTG this year was 97 (4th best in the entire NBA) and even before he improved his defense this year, his DRTG's were still impressive especially since he played on bad defensive teams (101, 102, 103, 105)
While Perkins 1v1 defense is very good and arguably great, he is also a very good help defender as well. His pick and roll defense this year has been absolutly amazing (a lot of this credited to his much increased mobility), and he is also good at blocking guards/sf's shots who beat their man off the dribble (averaged 2.1, 2.4, 2.8, 2.2, 2.1 blocks per 36).
Perkins is also a very good rebounder although the stats don't show this as much since he has played with 2 great rebounders in Big Al and KG. But before Big Al got serious minutes a year ago his rebounds per 36 where (14.4, 11.6, 10.9). When Big Al got serious minutes he averaged 8.5, and when KG came here he had 8.9. However Perkins man almost never gets an offensive rebound, which is very important and doesn't show up in the stats sheet. Perkins is also a very good offensive rebounder averaging 5.1, 3.5, 3.8, 2.6, 2.7 offensive rebounds per 36.
Looking at his stats some would say a knock on Perk is his limited minutes (he played 24.5 mpg this year which was a career high). However Celtics fans all know this is blamed on Doc and they would all agree Perk should have gotten at least 30 mpg (which I plan on playing him)
Perkins, while hardly an offensive force, has shown he can play with stars. This year his TS% was an amazing 631 and he scored 10 ppg per 36. This is much higher than his other years of 580, 515, 548, 518 because he no longer was asked to do anything on offense, just stay near the hoop for offensive rebounds and if his man leaves him be ready for an open dunk (which is the exact role he will play in my offense).
Perkins is also very intense and always gives 100% whenever he steps onto the court. When he is always on the bench he is always cheering for his teammates and trying to fire everyone up (you always need at least one guy on ur team like this).
Perkins allows me to have an amazing defensive starting 5 where everyone in it are very good/great defenders (Billups, Raja Bell, Deng, McHale, Perkins). Infact I would say this is probably the best defensive starting 5 in our entire league and we all know by now defense wins championships. However it is also a very good/great offensive team as well, with great shooting and players who command double teams. We only have 1 person on the floor who can't hit at least a midrange shot (Perkins) and he will be playing near the hoop, so the floor spacing will be great.
Team so far:
C: Kendrick Perkins
PF: Kevin McHale
SF: Luol Deng
SG: Raja Bell
PG: Chauncey Billups
6th man: SG Kevin Martin