Here’s why everyone perks up when they’re around Kendrick Perkins

Kendrick Perkins (right) has become one of ESPN's leading NBA personalities.Kendrick Perkins doesn’t work an audience so much as he draws one, one well-wisher at a time.

Posting up courtside on the edge of the Warriors bench a couple of hours before Game 5 of the NBA Finals, the former Celtics power forward is there to chat with a reporter about his ascent as an analyst for ESPN and, locally, at NBC Sports Boston.

But as Perkins — “Perk” to just about everyone, whether they know him personally or not — elaborates on how he never planned on a media career during his playing days and how his popularity as a talking head is a surprise to him, he is greeted by a conga line of friends, colleagues,…