Kiwi Steve in the NBA: The Bubble Edition

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One of the main reasons that Steven Adams is such a beloved character in Aotearoa is that despite how embedded he is in the high-stakes world of National Basketball he still just seems like a down to earth kiwi fella. One of the main reasons that Steven Adams is such a beloved character in the NBA is because that down to earth kiwi fella nature is such a unique thing in the high-stakes world of the National Basketball Association. And while these multi-millionaire players, rightfully rewarded for the talent they possess and the joy they inspire in the community with that talent, adjust to the unique circumstances of doing what they do in a bubble within a global pandemic in the nation with the worst pandemic numbers on the planet... sometimes a unique take is exactly what you need.

β€œIt’s all good mate. Lets be clear, this is not Syria mate. It’s not that hard. Its not that difficult, bro. We’re living in a bloody resort, you know? Everyone’s got a complaint, everyone has their own preferences mate but you know. It’s not anything too serious. Just a bit of dry food here and there and you get bored every now and then but its all good man. It’s pretty cool. It’s actually pretty cool because you get to interact with players on the other teams too.”

It’s nice to have a bit of perspective. There were some dramas when players initially settled into the bubble but those seem to have pretty quickly been silenced and for the most part the Walt Disney World x NBA thing has been smooth sailing. Even if Lou Williams does prefer the chicken wings elsewhere. And for us mere plebs sitting on the outside looking in as fans... the content quality has been outstanding, let’s be honest.

Bubble Life

So what does one get up to while stuck in a bubble? Well if you’re Steven Adams you’ve got a bagful of lasagna packages to heat up and eat up, that’s one thing you can do, plus there’s the endless entertainment of strumming away on that guitar. Learn a few more chords. Add a few tunes to the repertoire. See if you can’t get Chris Paul or Danilo Gallinari humming along to some Dave Dobbyn or Crowded House or whatever.

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Tu meke

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Or there’s chess. Lots of online chess. Some NBA players have turned their hotel rooms into full-on gaming paradises and are going hundies on the twitch streams and all that but Steven Adams has been working on his various gambits and traps on the board.

Check. Mate.

For some reason a couple weeks back he tweeted that image in reply to a whole bunch of NBA posts. Might as well celebrate when the plan comes off. That LΓ©gal Trap thing is actually a legit high-end strategy so the bro clearly ain’t a rookie at the chess thing. Gotta get him and Klay Thompson together somehow.

And then afterwards if you still get tired of the tunes and the feeds and the board games, you can always troll Enes Kanter online a little...

Previously On... This OKC Thunder Season

Right so where were we? It’s been a long time so a thorough recap wouldn’t go astray. You may recall before this ridiculously elongated season, about thirteen months ago, a few bombs came along in free agency. Paul George traded to the Clippers, Russell Westbrook then traded to the Rockets. The OKC Thunder with a bucketful of future draft picks but a roster that many considered only trade bait for further draft picks. Surely Chris Paul wouldn’t hang around. Danilo Gallinari on an expiring contract, he’d be dealt to a contender. Dennis SchrΓΆder would be gone. Even Steven Adams might be on the block. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is young enough to be a part of the next great Thunder team but could he get them wins in the meantime?

Yet the season progressed day by day and the Thunder hung around. After starting 1-4, and then 6-11, they steadily found form and woke up on Christmas morning with a winning record. By the end of January they were ten games above evens. By the All Star break they were 33-22. By the time of the infamous aborted game against the Utah Jazz, which led to the four and a half month postponement of the entire league, they were a tasty 40-26 sitting in the fifth seed in the West and now, with the truncated season, assured of playoff basketball. How did this happen?

Chris Paul is where it starts. The 35 year old point guard is having a resurgent season after a difficult fit in his time in Houston, able to take full control of this offence and keep it at a pace he’s comfortable with. He’s got these fellas shining within Billy Donovan’s player-empowered system and he’s been utterly dominant in late-game situations. SGA has flourished next to CP3, SchrΓΆder has been excellent off the bench. The Thunder don’t do too many things on an extraordinary level but they do most things very well, they’ve got multiple ball-handlers and a solid defence, they shoot the ball well from in the arc especially and they don’t turn the ball over very much, they get to the line well and they don’t give up cheap fouls themselves.

What’s more is that they’ve gotten better as the season has gone along and players have been able to develop stronger combinations... all tantalising enough to keep Sam Presti from pulling the trigger on any of those expected trades. That and also, to be fair, the market wasn’t really offering them value on what they had to sell. If the right offer had come in for Chris Paul or whoever then it would’ve happened, make no mistake about it. Yet the performances on the court were encouraging enough to empower old mate Presti to shrug it all off and say well, let’s see what this crew can do then.

This isn’t to say they’re rocking up at Disney World with golden expectations. This OKC team is 9-17 against teams with winning records and the playoffs don’t tend to offer up many easybeats, definitely not in those feisty middle seeds. But this has been an enjoyable OKC team which deserves the chance to see it out. With the NBA Bubble they’ll get that chance. Now we wait to see what’s up.

The Task Ahead

  • Utah Jazz (41-23) - Sunday 2 August at 7.30am

  • Denver Nuggets (43-22) - Tuesday 4 August at 8am

  • LA Lakers (49-14) - Thursday 6 August at 10.30am

  • Memphis Grizzlies (32-33) - Saturday 8 August at 8am

  • Washington Wizards (24-40) - Monday 10 August at 4.30am

  • Phoenix Suns (26-36) - Tuesday 11 August at 6.30am

  • Miami Heat (41-24) - Thursday 13 August at 12pm

  • LA Clippers (44-20) - Saturday 15 August TBD

There’s your eight-game schedule for the Thunder, all in NZ times. The Thunder play all four Western Conference teams currently ranked ahead of them and with only one game currently separating the fourth seed from the seventh they’re going to need to get a couple sneaky wins there, most likely. The worst case scenario here is that they slip to seventh and get pummelled by the Clippers in the first round. Reaaaally don’t wanna see that happen.

Billy Donovan has a bit of a secret weapon however. After an agonising two and a half years spent recovering from a horrific leg injury Andre Roberson is finally back and playing basketball. In the three scrimmage games that the Thunder played, winning all three (against the 76ers, Celtics, and Trail Blazers), Roberson not only showed flashes of his trademark defensive supremacy but he also flexed a reworked shooting motion and if he can suddenly hit a few open corner threes then that’s a game-changer for the Thunder. Obviously his fitness will be an issue and he only played limited minutes in scrimmage but at his peak he’s a guy who could give fits to even the best players in the league as an on-ball defender. It’s a wildcard but you never know. Meanwhile...

It’s a fascinating thought, ain’t it? Adams looked unstoppable in preseason but took a few rough blows early in the proper season and it undeniably slowed him down. He’s shown flashes of that dominance again in little streaks but just as it’d look like he’s getting there there’d be another knock slowed him down or just general fatigue throughout a long season or whatever. The NBA is brutal like that. If you’re already playing half-hurt then it’s going to slow you down in plenty of other ways like dominoes falling and the way that Adams plays makes those knocks inevitable.

But tell ya what he’s looked real sharp so far in those scrimmages. Same deal as preseason, it’s meaningless basketball so you have to keep a pinch of salt handy but the eye test has been passed with flying colours. He looks fit, he looks mobile, he looks motivated... he looks like a player who is going to suit this condensed bubble basketball nicely. Donovan has tried deliberately to manage Adams’ conditioning to prioritise the playoffs in the past and here he doesn’t have to. There will still be matchups where Adams doesn’t quite suit but if he’s raring to go then it’s more likely he can bully smaller fives and command his place out there in the crunch. The mismatch goes both ways, right? It’s all about who can exploit it.

Old mate might even throw up a corner three now and again.

Would need to be a little sharper than that though, yikes.

HB Steve-o

Speaking of Enes Kanter, this next tweet was almost certainly Enes Kanter related...

But we can pretend he hates the Celtics like the rest of us (remember the Celtics were one of the teams that came closest to drafting him, potentially they would have if OKC hadn’t got there first, and they’re also a team that had been linked with him as a trade possibility in recent times – although that might just be because the Celtics get linked with everyone).

Slam Dunks

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Written by Nick Robinson On Tagged ,