Shannon Sharpe was so disappointed with Kendrick Perkins’ content on First Take that he felt the need to voice his discontent to their ESPN bosses. Although Stephen A. Smith was absent from the Tuesday morning episode, the show remained dramatic. Perkins presented his top-5 NBA contenders, which included the Boston Celtics, Oklahoma City Thunder, Golden State Warriors, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Los Angeles Clippers, notably omitting Sharpe’s Los Angeles Lakers.
Shannon Sharpe calls on Disney and ESPN execs after hearing Kendrick Perkins’ Top 5 NBA contenders.
“I’m going to talk to Bob Iger, Jimmy Pitaro, Burke Magnus, and Dave Roberts. If you all give Perk another chance to run a list while I’m on here I’m out.” pic.twitter.com/UcZWH6gvju
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) April 8, 2025
“I’ll give you the Celtics…if you wanna say OKC, okay, I’ll give you that. But the other three? Not on their best day. You oughta be ashamed of yourself,” Sharpe exclaimed. He stated, “I’m going to the execs. If you all give Perk another chance to run a list while I’m on here, I’m out,” while also asking ESPN to put First Take host Molly Qerim on-screen to emphasize his position regarding Perkins.
“Put Molly up, I want to see Molly,” Sharpe stressed. “Molly, if Perk gets another list while I’m on here, I’m out.” Though Sharpe likely won’t truly escalate the matter to Bob Iger over Perkins ranking the Clippers before the Lakers, it raises the question of whether Perkins cared about Sharpe’s public attempt to embarrass him over a relatively tame opinion. Was it the best top-5 list in First Take history? Probably not. However, it wasn’t as egregious as Dan Orlovsky excluding Joe Montana from his top-5 quarterbacks of all time, either.
