Steven Adams & The Oklahoma City Thunder Preview: Third Season’s the Charm?
The first year of an athlete’s career is all about establishing themselves. They’ve no reputation yet and few of them have any expectations right away. It’s all about building that platform. Then in the second season, you have the first one to compare it to. You have to deal with opponents starting to figure you out and it’s from here that you get the infamous Sophomore Slump. That’s fine, plenty of greats have gone through that before. It’s the third season that’s the kicker. The third season is the one where the long-term patterns begin emerging, where you make the necessary adjustments and you settle into becoming the player that you’re always gonna be. In many ways it’s the most defining year of an athlete’s career.
Steven Adams is now entering his third season in the NBA. He’s already emerged from a raw, unpolished prospect to a man that was able to make an immediate impact on his team. He’s grown significantly in every area of his game through his first two seasons, though he’s probably gained the most recognition for his toughness and stoicism. Plus his interview game, which is top notch. Right now he sits at the precipice of breaking through into wider basketballing appeal, beyond being ‘that guy from that team’. Things may just be lining up for him, which calls for a full on investigation. And away we go…
Pre-Season
While Stevie sat out the Tall Blacks games against Australia, prompting all sorts of bad reads on the situation, it’s probably been underestimated how hard he’s worked. For example, Adams went up to Seattle with Nick Collison at one point and they trained their bollocks off. Collison may not be a superstar talent but he’s the longest serving man on this playing roster and one of the best professionals in the business. There’s a reason Kevin Durant calls him “Mr Thunder”. Plus the pair definitely have a bit of a bro-ship going on.
And he still managed to find his way back to God’s Own for a few basketball camps and such. The Tall Blacks thing isn’t a priority for an up and coming NBA baller, the risks are too high – see Dante Exum. Don’t doubt his commitment to his country, this from a pre-season interview with Adams & Collison:
Collison: Nobody’s more proud of where they come than him. He doesn’t stop talking about New Zealand. He’s, like, demanding that everyone makes a trip out there so we’ll all go at some point. - NC
Adams: Coz it’s fun!
Now he’s back in action with the Thunder, looking to force his way into a bigger role on a team of big names. Pre-season tends to be a bit of a mix and match as non-roster guys get opportunities and veterans sit the odd one out. Injuries don’t get risked and all that. Adams had one injury, getting poked in the eye in a win over the Nuggets, though even after leaving that one in the third quarter, he still managed to average the most minutes per game of any Thunder player during pre-season. 25 and a half minutes, edging out Serge Ibaka and then Russell Westbrook.
It was a successful pre-season, in as much as anyone cares about pre-season. The team won 5 of their 6 games, Adams played in all but the first one. Pre-seasons a mess and the stats only tell you so much since these are often experimental/throwaway lineups and rotations. Still, his best name was a 14 & 10 double-double in which he shot 6 of 8, as well as logging 3 assists and 2 blocks. That was against Utah, with Enes Kanter sitting out. That split centre thing is a dilemma but it’s a positive one for the Thunder. Who starts? How are the minutes split? Can they ever play together? Ask Billy Donovan. But it was a successful run of games, Stevie shooting 70.4% from the field and 61.9% from the free throw line. The totals themselves (10.2 ppg / 7.4 rpg) are misleading but those are nice averages for this guy.
The Numbers on the Board
Right, so let’s look at the numbers that do count.
Over his first two seasons, you can definitely see how he came out of his shell more last season. Or maybe a better phrase would be that the shackles were loosened. In his rookie season it was more about working on the fundamentals. Positioning and conditioning and the likes. Plus they put a big emphasis on his defensive game initially. Last year they allowed him to get to work of pick and rolls a little, as well as his offensive rebounding getting better and allowing for a few second chance points. The extra 10 minutes a game helped with the production too.
But even looking at his per-36 numbers, Adams took big strides forward in almost every category – even with fouls, his rookie season he was fouling out within 36 mins on average. He took more shots from further from the hoop and yet still improved his FG%. His usage went up from 11.7% to 14.3%. As to how much that can continue to grow, probably not all that much, that number’s maybe skewed by playing without KD & Russ for stretches. That’s kinda part of his value, though. He doesn’t need the ball in his hands and that’s important in a team stacked with offensive talent. Having said that, he is slowly becoming a very handy player driving to the hoop out of pick and rolls.
It’d be a boost if we see more rebounding from Adams. Enes Kanter is better off the boards, though Stevie hauls in the offensive ones nicely. With all the scorers in this team, points are not a priority for Steven. Defence is a priority. That’s what differentiates him from Kanter, who is a turnstile but a much better offensive player. Adams has a career defensive rating of 103 points per 100 possessions, which is solid. It’ll be better with more Serge Ibaka next to him again as well. Kanter almost never played without being handcuffed to Ibaka for Serge’s proper fantastic defence. He let opponents shoot 57.1% on him and his defensive rating with OKC was 110.4 – which means with Kanter on the floor the Thunder conceded more points than the average of all but the worst two teams in the NBA (T-Wolves 112.2 & Lakers 110.6). The Thunder as a whole were at 105.5, dead average among all teams.
The Thunder suddenly has some quality perimeter defenders but still lacks much interior punch. This is where Adams is crucial, he and Ibaka are the only two that offer that. He’s got heavy legs and doesn’t have the spring in them to be an elite rim protector but there’s no reason he can’t be more than good enough. He’s not getting out-hustled by anyone, that’s for sure.
For a big guy, Adams has some pretty steady hands. Don’t expect too much on the assist front because that’s not what his role entails, though he’ll notch the odd one so long as he rebounds well. His kickout/outlet passing game is an underrated aspect of what he does.
But there is one stat where Steven Adams needs some serious improvement and that’s in his free throw shooting. In his usually modest and casual way, he’s joked about it before but he’s also putting some real work into it. For his career he shoots 53.4% from the line and that’s at least 10% too low. When you’re averaging 1 from 2, that’s when people start targeting you for that. He did hit 61.2% during pre-season, so there’s reason for optimism.
Adams also came in at 116 on ESPN’s annual #NBARank, moving up from 130 last time. 116 places Steve right above Sean Livingston and directly below Amir Johnson. Continue to grow and we’ll start hearing words like ‘underrated’ associated with him.
The Team Situation
Last season was something close to a worst case scenario for the Oklahoma City Thunder. Kevin Durant got injured, that injury was mishandled, Russell Westbrook missed early stretches, Serge Ibaka was ruled out for the season partway through and they missed the playoffs completely (via tiebreaker vs New Orleans). There’s a theme there, right?
That so happens to be the same theme they’ve struggled with for a couple years. The previous two seasons were halted after playoff injuries to Ibaka (2013) and Westbrook (2014). 2014-15 was ruined as Durant, Westbrook and Ibaka missed 88 games between them. Add in Roberson and Adams (the other likely starters) and that number’s up to 115 missed games. And yet guess what? They were still good. Not good enough but still good. They won 45 games and had the fifth best offence in the league based on points per game (104.0).
Still, it wasn’t enough to keep Scott Brooks’ head coaching job. He was sacked at the end of the campaign after seven seasons during which he made one NBA Finals, two Conference Finals and won 338 of his 545 games in charge. He tutored Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook into elite NBA talent and did great things working with a number of other young players (James Harden, Serge Ibaka, etc.). But there was a growing concern that he lacked the tactical nous to take this team to the title. A defence that relied on a couple main guys, an offence mostly built on isolation plays and their two best players creating their own shots. Brooks was a well-liked coach, but this team was on the verge of a dynasty after the 2012 Finals and is now a season from it all collapsing. In his place comes Billy Donovan, the long-time Florida Gators coach and a man perennially linked with NBA gigs.
Donovan is also a popular coach and he’s already made that impression on the players. He joins an established roster with good chemistry and stacked with quality. The hope is probably that Billy D can have an effect on OKC like Steve Kerr did with Golden State last time out, replacing a good coach with a playoff ceiling and immediately taking them to the next level. In the very least, it’s hard to see him bottoming out this year. The fact that they still won 45 games last season suggests that either Scotty Brooks is a genius (which GM Sam Presti has already bet against) or that a team with Westbrook and/or Durant has a benchmark of wins that they’re always gonna reach. There’s a transition to be made but it isn’t huge. Expect to see a more refined offence and bigger defensive emphasis. More sets and better spacing. As to whether KD and Russ are down for that after having pretty much free licence under Brooks, well you’d imagine they’re ready to do anything possible to win at this point.
There wasn’t much else to be done in the offseason, most of their work was done at the trade deadline. Re-signing Ener Kanter and Kyle Singler reinforced that. Both of those two on four year deals, Singler bringing a career 37.8% 3pt shot and Kanter his brutish post game and rebounding. His was a tricky situation in that he was a restricted free agent who ended up with a max deal as OKC matched the offer from Portland (part desperate after losing a few key players, part cap-trolling on behalf of the rest of the NBA). Is he worth that money? Hell no, not with his defence. But the Thunder weren’t finding a better player and they had good success with Kanter in 2014-15. It was all about stability.
As well as those two, the Thunder also inked 2014 draft pick Josh Heustis after a solid D-League campaign and 2015 first rounder Cameron Payne. Those two effectively replace Perry Jones III and Jeremy Lamb, two young players who never quite took the next step in Oklahoma City. There are a few gambles on this roster, Kanter being the biggest, where they’re banking on natural talent over obvious fit. Dion Waiters is another such dude. With 15 guaranteed contracts and no major incoming free agents, no team could have had a more stable offseason.
The Thunder Moving Forward
So what exactly are we gonna see from this team in 2015-16? Based on pre-season, you can pencil in a starting five of:
Westbrook / Roberson / Durant / Ibaka / Adams
Yeah, Stevie starting centre, that’s what it looks like. Both that position and the two-guard are probably up for grabs and we may even see changes based on match-ups and such. One thing about this five is that you’ve got some monster defence on offer. Plus some serious scoring punch on the bench with the likes of Kanter and Waiters. Enes Kanter off the bench is drawing predictions of genuine Sixth Man of the Year potential. Any defensive liabilities are limited against second teamers, while his offensive post game will be magnified.
The other badass thing about that lot is that every one of the quintet was drafted by the Thunder. There’s a massive pat on the back to the front office.
Having accumulated a bunch of shooters for the bench, it’ll be interesting how Coach Donovan uses them. Anthony Morrow, statistically, is borderline legendary as a shooter but he’s not much else. He could be starting if he were, but then that might not be so effective to put a pure shooter like that in lineups that have KD and Russ both, there won’t be that many extra shots available once those two have gotten theirs. Fair enough too.
Dion Waiters is an interesting piece. There’s been talk of an extension for him but he’s not done much to earn it. He’s a decent shooter yet one with terrible decision-making and having fallen out of contention to start, it could be interesting to see how he handles being a bench contributor. The centre pairing complement each other nicely, the shooting guards in this team maybe offer up a couple too many questions. Whoever backs up Westbrook at PG is a problem too, right now it’s only really D.J. Augustin.
Every team has a couple holes though. The biggest one for the Thunder, the biggest question mark of all, is that of Billy Donovan. How does he cope in the big leagues? He should be fine. Donovan is an intelligent coach with a good rapport with his team. And anyway, OKC offers an incredibly stable roster for a new coach as well as great team chemistry. Like, these guys go to Halloween parties dressed as each other. With two of the best players in the NBA on this team and players also who can create their own shots, it’s hard to see him falling short of expectations. It’s only in the playoffs when that could become a factor, when all the little details are put under the microscope. Time will tell on that account – this team is aiming for a title. Perhaps even that dynasty they thought may elude them.
But of course that all rests on the elephant in the room: Kevin Durant’s free agency. The Thunder will be right up there this season, no doubt about it, but the future is anyone’s guess. Durant is a free agent after this year and there’s gonna be speculation all season about him possibly leaving. For sure every team in the league who can afford to will make a run at him. KD is all in with this Thunder team and he wants nothing more than to win a title with them but if it doesn’t come this time it may not come with them at all.
One theory is that he’ll sign a one year extension which would synchronise his free agency with Russell Westbrook and Serge Ibaka, allowing the core one extra run at this thing and meaning he’ll be due a juicy fresh contract right as the new TV deal kicks in, meaning an extra $35-40m dollars over the course of it, per Grantland’s Zach Lowe and his mathematics.
For the record, that’d also mean that trio hit FA at the same time as Steven Adams, who has just had his fourth year team option picked up by the Thunder. Andre Roberson too, as well as Mitch McGarry’s third year option.
Anyway, that’s all down the line. Right now there’s a Thunder team hungry for a title and Steven Adams will be a big part of it all.