Kendrick Perkins didn’t hold back when he looked at the Cavaliers’ failed bid to land LeBron James, calling it a major mistake on the Road Trippin’ Show after James chose the Philadelphia 76ers instead.
“The Cavs, how do you f*** that up?” Perkins said.
“How do you f*** that up? … It was almost as worse as Brad Stevens messing up this Giannis [Antetokounmpo] thing and losing to Pat Riley.
It’s no way in hell that you get a face-to-face meeting with Bron. He was in Akron for almost three weeks.
He met with y’all. How do you mess this up?
Like seriously.
“And the real thing about it, y’all said it, is that Jaylen Brown was the piece,” Perkins continued. “Jaylen Brown been available.
Jaylen Brown, if Cleveland would have made a move and traded for Jaylen Brown, nine times out of 10, LeBron James would have been in Cleveland. But y’all didn’t want to part ways with one of your guys, whether that was Evan Mobley or Donovan Mitchell.
“You did not want to part ways, and now all of a sudden you probably won’t win another championship for the next eight to nine years,” Perkins added. “How do you lose that?”
James had been viewed as one of the likeliest names to land in Cleveland this summer, and the Cavaliers were the only team he met with in person during free agency. He sat down with the Gilbert family, team president Koby Altman, and assistant general manager Brandon Weems, who was also his former high school teammate.
The interest in a return was obvious. Cleveland is his hometown team, the franchise that made him the No. 1 pick in the 2003 NBA Draft, and the place where he spent 11 seasons across two stints.
He delivered a title there in 2016, and the idea of going back and adding another one carried plenty of appeal. Instead, he passed on the reunion.
According to NBA insider Brian Windhorst, there were three strikes against Cleveland. First, James’ family wasn’t steering him toward any one destination, which made a new option like Philadelphia perfectly acceptable.
The second issue, Windhorst said, was that the Cavaliers didn’t bring in Jaylen Brown from the Boston Celtics. Brown was available, and the 76ers landed him for Paul George, two first-round picks, and two second-round picks. That move changed the picture fast.
James only began to view Philadelphia as a real option after Brown arrived. The 41-year-old was looking for the best title path, and the trade pushed the 76ers onto his radar.
Perkins believes Brown would have been enough to swing James back to Cleveland, though that remains one of the questions no one can answer. It clearly would have strengthened their case.
The final factor was Cleveland’s February deal that sent Darius Garland and a second-round pick to the Los Angeles Clippers for James Harden. Garland, like James, is represented by Klutch Sports Group, and the two have had a long-standing relationship. Losing that familiarity mattered.
Philadelphia, meanwhile, had its own Klutch Sports Group connection in Tyrese Maxey, which only helped. The 76ers checked a lot of boxes, and James ultimately signed a two-year, $8 million deal with them after averaging 20.9 points, 6.1 rebounds, 7.2 assists, 1.2 steals, and 0.6 blocks per game in 2025-26.
Now the 76ers are being treated like a serious title threat, while the Cavaliers are left with the kind of missed opportunity Perkins thinks could sting for a long time.
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