Kiwi Steve in the NBA #7: The Dreaded Trade Deadline
Well folks, the time has come and gone. The NBA Trade Deadline passed at 9am on Friday in Aotearoa time and as of that moment Steven Adams was effectively confirmed as an Oklahoma City Thunder player for the remainder of the season. This is all territory that’s been well covered in this column over the previous months. He was never likely to be on the move. Rumours swirled but tangible evidence suggested that there just wasn’t the marketplace for big men for the Thunder to get back what they wanted for him and what they wanted was a fair bit considering the esteem he’s held in at that franchise.
The Thunder are clearly in a rebuilding phase. It’s a happy coincidence that they’ve been able to main a relatively high level of performance even still but it’s no secret that the number one priority is the future. Otherwise why are you trading away your two best players with such a heavy return of draft picks instead of current players? Of course, they did also pick up Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Danilo Gallinari, and Chris Paul in those Paul George and Russell Westbrook trades which is why they’re looking like a playoff team right now but that’s just good business. There’s a longer term vision in place.
The thing about that rebuilding priority is that you’ve gotta be on your toes, you’ve gotta stay flexible. As such, while guys like CP3 and Adams are massively influential members of this team both on and off the court... GM Sam Presti still has to do his due diligence when other teams get on the phone. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the only player on the Thunder roster who is truly off the trade block. Everybody else has a price tag, no matter how steep it may be. The recent amazing form of the Thunder probably raises that price tag pretty significantly as they’ll wanna see where this season might go, as they should, but for the right return everybody is available aside from SGA.
For Steven Adams that price tag was apparently: a young prospect, a solid draft pick, and some salary cap relief. Adams is into the third year of his big contract, earning $25.8 million this season (which by the way is EXACTLY the same amount, to the dollar, as reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo is earning this year) and he’ll earn $27.5m next season before hitting free agency afterwards. That’s a lot of money to absorb for any contending team willing to make a deal, especially given the Thunder weren’t keen on matching salaries, and teams outside that contending status weren’t gonna want to give up any top tier young players. Matching on a couple of those OKC demand were possible. Matching on all three was incredibly tricky and would have required some kind of conveniently specific circumstance.
However there was almost one of those. The Atlanta Hawks. The same team that were close to acquiring Andre Drummond a few weeks back only for that to fall apart and a team who has been linked with Adams throughout this campaign. Adrian Wojnarowski had this to say in his ESPN scribblings a few days prior to the deadline...
Woj Bomb: “Atlanta has been interested in acquiring a starting level center and has talked with Houston about Capela and Oklahoma City about Steven Adams, league sources said. Atlanta's talks with Detroit about center Andre Drummond lost momentum in recent weeks.”
Has talked. OKC and Atlanta had “talks” regarding Steven Adams. Quick pump of the brakes there because holding talks is what all good GMs do regardless. It’s Presti’s job to assess what the market values his players at, particularly at a time when you’re looking to hoard assets. All that really says is that Atlanta were interested in Adams because we have zero idea of the scope of those “talks”. If I went to the store and said I was interested in purchasing a new phone, yes that particularly shiny and expensive one there, but I only had $4.60 in my bank account (support TNC on Patreon!), could we mayhaps strike a deal? And then they said: no. I could still then walk out of there saying I “held talks” about buying that phone, right?
It doesn’t matted. Because soon enough, Woj went and dropped this gem upon us...
The only team making a big deal out of looking for a centre and they nabbed Clint Capela instead. Rightio then. With more than 30 hours still remaining in the deadline, taking the heat out of it for OKC fans for at least one of their key players.
Now, once we get to next season if Steven Adams hasn’t gotten in on negotiations for a new deal and rolls in on an expiring contract then that changes things. Teams are much more interested in taking a financial hit when it won’t affect their free agency plans. By the way, Clint Capela has a very similar skillset to Steven Adams but earns about nine million dollars less than him and is under contract for two extra years. Plus Houston were genuinely hunting for more wing defence and actively looking to trade Capela. It makes more sense for Atlanta than giving up more for Adams to a hard-bargaining OKC team. And if you wanna see what the rest of the marketplace was like for big men, you only have to look at the Detroit Pistons dumping Andre Drummond for peanuts to the Cleveland Cavs on deadline day.
As for dealing with trade speculation?
Steven Adams: “As we all know, what Woj says is prophecy”
Yes, truly he is the prophet of our times.
Still, that only meant that Adams was safe. Chris Paul too considering the enormity of his contract. But the New York Knicks were vocal of their interest in Dennis Schröder if that could come to pass (despite firing their GM days before the deadline, d’oh) while Woj himself had the lowdown on Danilo Gallinari. After it was revealed that Andre Iguodala would finally have his Memphis Standoff ended with a flip to Miami, the Heat got choppy on bringing other teams into it to make it work. For a decent amount of time it looked like the Thunder would get in on the action, with Gallinari on his way to the Heat and the Thunder negotiating the removal of the protections on the future Heat picks they already own... but once again Sam Presti was too much of a hassle to deal with. The Thunder only wanted to trade if they could get value back. They never found enough of that value to satisfy them. As such the prophet of our times squeezed this one out minutes after the deadline officially passed...
No dramas here, this Thunder team is a whole lot of fun and keeping Stevie put is definitely a preference. It would have been fun to see him and Trae Young together. It would have been pretty cool if he’d ended up on the Spurs given how much he’d fit that culture and his known adoration for Coach Pop. The Dallas Mavericks with Doncic and Porzingis would’ve been cool. Thankfully the Boston Celtics never got chirpy following their offseason curiosity. But nah, Steven Adams in Oklahoma City just feels right... for now anyway. And to get through that period with all their dudes still around is exciting. This is a team that on current form should be making the playoffs and you could even say the more disappointing thing is that they weren’t able to snatch a shot-making wing to add to things... maybe the waiver wire or the buyout period will serve up some goodness on that front. Because, mate, you add that one extra 3&D dude to this lot and suddenly even the LA teams are perking up. But we’ll see how that goes. For now it’s just cool that we’ll get to see a full year of this crew.
The Big Deals From Around The League....
D’Angelo Russell to the Minnesota Timberwolves, with Andrew Wiggins going the other way to the GS Warriors as part of the deal
Andre Iguodala to the Heat and Justice Winslow to the Grizz, with the Wolves also involved in things and a few other players changing places around them
The Clippers win the arms race in LA for Marcus Morris, with Isaiah Thomas also ended up a Clipper in a three-team trade involving the Wizards and Knicks.
Detroit Pistons send Andre Drummond to the Cavs for Brandon Knight, John Henson & a second round pick
(Funnily enough, the Thunder played the Cavs the day before the trade deadline and play the Pistons the day after so Steven Adams dodges Andre Drummond both times).
Limitations & Fouls
Billy Donovan: “Steven is dealing with an ankle. He's working through that right now. He's obviously said that he can play, so we'll put him out there.”
The previous Kiwi Steve ended with old mate taking a tumble after a blow from Clint Capela and not returning, having rolled his ankle in going down. This having only just come back from missing a game with knee soreness. That ankle would keep him out of two games before he returned with a 0-pt 1-rb performance against the Timberwolves - clearly still hobbled by it all. Adams has already missed six games this season for at least three different reasons and he’s played on an unofficial minutes restriction for most of it (he averaged more than 33 mins per game last season while this season he’s only played that many minutes on four occasions). He was a little better against the Mavs a couple days later but yeah as much as we wanna see him smashing career best stats it’s looking more like one of those seasons where injuries are just too invasive. Tough bastard though, never not playing through the pain.
Probably not a coincidence then that his foul counts have risen significantly since he came back from that knock. He had five of them in the win over Phoenix, though played through that late as the Thunder came back to win it. 13 fouls in the four games since the two he missed though, that’s the most he’s had over a four game stretch all season. Probably not quite moving as well as usual. That’s how slim the margins can be at this level... which leads us into a recent story about his drawn charges lately. You may recall this incident from a game back in December...
That, so he claimed, was the first drawn charge of his entire career. Nobody seems to have the stats to prove that one way or another but certainly nobody’s found any evidence to the contrary. He got Rudy Gobert there, he’s also caught Tristan Thompson and Joel Embiid since (note that one of his five fouls versus Phoenix was trying to draw a charge against Kelly Oubre Jr).
Steve: “I didn’t add it, really. I just never really did it, honestly. It never really worked back in the day. Like, I’d try to take a charge, but I’d just fall over, and they’d just be like, ‘What are you doing? You’re stronger than that, mate. Get up.’”
Billy Donovan: “Not all the time do you want someone that big on the ground because if there is no foul, there’s no one there for rim protection. So, when he can pick and choose and he thinks he can do that [draw a charge], that’s great.”
Like coach says, it’s not really a move you wanna see your big fella pulling too often, but Adams is clever enough to know how to pick and choose his moments. When to set for the charge, when to retreat to the hoop and challenge the impending shot, etc. Best part about it is he absolutely bloody loves it. Sheer joy.
The Mysteries of Cupping
One more yarn to get to here, you’ve probably heard of cupping, where they jam those little suction things on your back and it leaves red bruise marks afterwards. Something about promoting bloodflow or muscle relaxants or whatever. A lot of athletes do it, Michael Phelps kinda made it famous at the Olympics that time. Anyway, Steven Adams has been showing up with the cupping marks on his back so The Oklahoman had an investigation about it. It’s not really about Adams, more about the procedure... but it’s pretty interesting.
BOX SCORES
at ORLANDO MAGIC (W 120-114):
DNP – Ankle Soreness
vs ATLANTA HAWKS (W 140-111):
DNP – Ankle Soreness
at MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES (W 113-104):
23 MIN | 0 PTS (0/2 FG) | 1 REB (0 OFF) | 2 AST | 4 BLK | 1 TO | 4 PF
vs DALLAS MAVERICKS (L 107-97):
24 MIN | 9 PTS (4/5 FG, 1/2 FT) | 5 REB (o OFF) | 4 AST | 2 PF
at SACRAMENTO KINGS (W 120-100):
26 MIN | 8 PTS (2/5 FG, 4/4 FT) | 8 REB (5 OFF) | 1 AST | 1 STL | 1 BLK | 2 PF
at PHOENIX SUNS (W 111-107):
23 MIN | 8 PTS (4/6 FG) | 5 REB (4 OFF) | 2 AST | 1 BLK | 4 TO | 5 PF
vs CLEVELAND CAVALIERS (W 109-103):
30 MIN | 6 PTS (2/5 FG, 2/3 FT) | 8 REB (1 OFF) | 3 AST | 1 TO | 2 PF
THE SCHEDULE
vs DETROIT PISTONS, Saturday at 2pm (NZT)
vs BOSTON CELTICS, Monday at 9.30am (NZT)
vs SAN ANTONIO SPURS, Wednesday at 2pm (NZT)
at NEW ORLEANS PELICANS, Friday at 2pm (NZT)
< ALL STAR BREAK >
SLAM DUNKS
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