Evan Mobley is the latest NBA big man to find himself in the crosshairs of Kendrick Perkins.
The ESPN analyst Perkins drew attention on Wednesday with his ruthless swipe at the Cleveland Cavaliers big man Mobley. On “NBA Countdown,” Perkins called out the Cavaliers for supposedly being “soft” and compared Mobley in particular to a Hostess cupcake.
“The whispers around the NBA is that the Cleveland Cavaliers is soft,” said Perkins. “They’re sponsored by Hostess cupcakes because they creamy in the middle. I’m looking at Mobley.”
Kendrick Perkins on the Cavaliers
— NBA Courtside (@NBA__Courtside) April 8, 2026
"The whispers around the NBA is that the Cleveland Cavaliers is soft. They're sponsored by hostess cupcakes because they creamy in the middle. I'm looking at Evan Mobley" https://t.co/cTpjyVwgDi pic.twitter.com/zcdTa6sBIr
Mobley, 24, was an All-Star in 2025 and also won the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award that year. But he has experienced a slight regression in his numbers this season (18.2 points and 8.9 rebounds per game), and his lanky frame (6-foot-11 and 215 pounds) is often getting exposed by more physical matchups.
On the season as a whole, the Cavaliers are just fourth in the Eastern Conference at 51-27 after finishing last season first in the East at 64-18. The urgency for Cleveland to win now has only increased as well with the team’s major blockbuster move for 36-year-old James Harden at the trade deadline.
That being said, Mobley still got off pretty easy from Perkins there. In the recent past, Perkins has ripped Giannis Antetokounmpo as a “coward” and has also (ironically) called on multiple other NBA bigs to lose weight.
