{"id":643309,"date":"2026-05-14T20:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T20:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/643309\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T20:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T20:20:08","slug":"nba-analyst-throws-shots-at-luka-doncic-joel-embiid-over-availability-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/643309\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA analyst throws shots at Luka Doncic, Joel Embiid over availability issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

NBA analyst throws shots at Luka Doncic, Joel Embiid over availability issues<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ESPN NBA analyst Kendrick Perkins<\/a> managed to throw shots at two NBA superstars with one quote.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

During a recent appearance on First Take, Perkins expressed concerns about the durability and availability of Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> star guard Luka Doncic<\/a>, and he compared Doncic to oft-injured Sixers<\/a> center Joel Embiid<\/a> to illustrate his point.<\/p>\n

Kendrick Perkins calls out Luka Doncic, Joel Embiid for lack of availability<\/p>\n

Doncic missed the entirety of the 2026 postseason due to a hamstring injury, and Perkins drew parallels to Embiid, who has consistently missed important games for Philadelphia<\/a> over the course of his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the last three years, it\u2019s been something come postseason time, whether it\u2019s been out of shape or dealing with some type of injuries, and majority of the time it comes to soft tissue injuries,\u201d Perkins said of Doncic.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re the Lakers, you have a concern there, because you could get through the regular season, and Luka is a fantastic talent. We\u2019re not going to take that away from him. One of the best scorers that this game has ever seen. But when it comes to being reliable, Luka is starting to get in that territory of Joel Embiid. When you need him the most, and it comes postseason time, he\u2019s not available.\u201d<\/p>\n

While a bit harsh, Perkins has a point. In the NBA, availability is the best ability and it’s extremely difficult for a team to overcome the absence of a star player.<\/p>\n

That has been a concern with Embiid for the entirety of his career to this point, and as Perkins pointed out, it’s starting to become a concern with Doncic, too.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Hopefully both Doncic and Embiid can get some good luck when it comes to their health moving forward, because the league is a better place when both guys are operating at the peak of their powers.<\/p>\n

More NBA news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBA analyst throws shots at Luka Doncic, Joel Embiid over availability issues originally appeared on The Sporting News.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[5555,36975,1055,3014,355,2085,99],"class_list":["post-643309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-joel-embiid","tag-kendrick-perkins","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-luka-doncic","tag-nba","tag-philadelphia","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}