How Will Steven Adams Be Affected By Stan Van Gundy’s New Orleans Pelicans Departure?
It was already a case of very few guarantees when Steven Adams wrapped up his first season with the New Orleans Pelicans. Either your name is Zion Williamson or Brandon Ingram or your place on the Pellies is up in the air right now. Then Stan Van Gundy got the flick and now it’s basically the wild west.
SVG actually acquired Adams. He was fresh from being appointed coach when the franchise reached out and traded for him, specifically acquiring him, with the idea that they could pair him and Zion Williamson together in the roughest toughest frontcourt in the league. Nobody’s gonna be punking the Pelicans, said Van Gundy.
That’s not exactly how it worked out. Williamson ended up reaching into the stratosphere as a perimeter ball-handler, where he wanted three-pointer shooters setting screens for him and the lane nice and clear of traffic for Zion to do his thing. Two of the major aspects that Adams offers on offence and there was no longer much need for them. Defensively the team did make significant improvements as the season went on, especially after they adjusted their three-point defence... but Adams was injured for a lot of the end of all that so he didn’t have much to do with that either.
Steve-o still did his thing as best he could. He rebounded like a champion, he flexed some above average big man passing range, he was a leader on defence, he helped implement the coach’s plans on the court. But there’s definitely a case to say that he’d be more effective elsewhere, that perhaps the New Orleans Pelicans might be better suited building around Zion Williamson in a different way. And make no mistake that this offseason is ALL about building around Zion Williamson.
With Van Gundy running the show at least there was a feeling of continuity, one which kept in mind that Adams had been a part of this journey for the previous however many months. One in which there was a memory of why they brought him to the franchise in the first place. David Griffin might still be leading the front office stuff but with a new head coach impending that’s no longer the case. It’s a fresh start with a fresh mind who’ll have fresh ideas on how to get the best out of Zion Williamson and what a quality roster looks like around him. That could be great for Steven Adams or, seemingly more likely, it could mean him packing his bags and heading for a third team in three years. Three in three years, by the way, is also how many head coaches Zion Williamson will now have had since being drafted first overall.
There weren’t any inklings that SVG was getting cold toes back when the season ended. His exit interview seemed to suggest a man fully invested in returning and making this situation work but reports elsewhere has since suggested that there had long been tension behind the scenes, both between him and his top players and between him and Griffin. A lot of that stuff is normal, not everybody’s gonna be friends in a workplace, and it can be hard to divest genuine problems from just the usual malaise of a losing team. Given how this turned out though... yeah, there you go.
The thing with the players is concerning. Player power is a big deal these days in the NBA where the nature of the sport means that star players are essential to success and keeping them happy can be tricky in an age where those dudes understand their worth. Zion Williamson’s family have opinions about the state of the Pelicans. He got on well with JJ Redick who slammed the Pels on his podcast after he was traded. That’s all unfortunate noise for a franchise trying to keep Zion happy.
But rumours that Williamson, Ingram, Ball, etc. didn’t connect with Stan Van Gundy’s coaching reflects more on those dudes than it does in SVG. And also on the front office for hiring him in the first place. The idea was that he was an old school coaching bloke who could get these young fellas battling on defence and playing more effective basketball overall. That didn’t happen. Which, again, is not a great reflection on those players who weren’t able to lock in defensively under a player-favourite coach like Alvin Gentry and now have had the same troubles against more of an enforcer like SVG. Yikes. But it also makes you wonder why the organisation hired a 61 year old whose best successes as a head coach were close to a decade earlier to take charge of a team whose top players are in their early 20s. Like, Van Gundy’s probably older than their parents. Clearly there was a disconnect.
That’s an ironic misfortune for Steven Adams because an old school enforcer seems like just the kind of coach he’d love working for and he always seemed to talk about SVG with the utmost respect. Yet that’s kinda another example of why he may not be on this roster come the start of next season. It’ll take the new coach to decide what they want to do with him but there is also a salary cap situation to follow, as both Lonzo Ball and Josh Hart are entering restricted free agency and if either/both are to be retained then that’ll mean paying more than they’d probably prefer to for them. Steven Adams earns around $35m across the next two years thanks to that extension that he signed after the trade. That’s more than he’s probably worth for the Pels considering how they’re using him, but not so much that other teams won’t see that as an enticing cost. This from the final paragraph of The Athletic’s big insider yarn about the SVG dismissal...
“The Pels will also look to see if they can trade either Eric Bledsoe, Steven Adams or both. The two aging vets will tie up $35 million in cap space next season.”
Ageing? He’s not ageing any faster than anyone else on the planet – Steven Adams is turns 28 next month, chill on that one man. Plus they spelled “ageing” wrong.
Anyway, the worry about the Pelicans re-investing in Ball and Hart would be that they haven’t exactly been winning enough games with that core in place to date. Maybe they flip Bledsoe and Adams for a more aligned roster and that makes the difference. Maybe having a coach who connects with the main players better than SVG apparently did makes the difference. Then again, maybe those things won’t make a difference and the team will still be bad only with less flexibility. That’s the decision that David Griffin needs to make. That’s the risk.
The stakes are big here. There’s a threat that Zion Williamson may agitate to leave rather than signing his big extension in two years - not in the short term but the Pelicans aren’t thinking short term. At that point there’s only one thing that matters and that’s keeping Zion Williamson invested. And what does he want more than anything? Same thing all top athletes want: to win. This current drama isn’t the last straw by any means; it’s merely the end of the honeymoon period. This is where the magnifying glasses come out and all future decisions from here on will come under intense scrutiny. Three coaches in three years is one thing but four in four would be a disaster so this next hire is absolutely crucial.
All of which seems to suggest that Steven Adams is gonna find himself on the trade block. If the consensus is that he’s not the ideal fit for this franchise, if the unpunkable frontcourt idea has already blown up and its architect dismissed, then you’ve gotta at least take a few phone calls from other teams about him. Numerous Kiwi Steve articles on this website took on the task of dismantling many of those perceptions about Adams’ poor fit/performances but when it comes to free agency stuff perception is reality so that doesn’t even matter any more. The fact that people say he’s a bad fit makes him a bad fit and not addressing that is a risk that the front office don’t wanna be seen to be taking right now.
Steven Adams is under contract for two more years. He’s a well-liked teammate who won’t grumble if his minutes drop. He gives you those lockerroom intangibles. This is what Mark Daignault, OKC assistant turned head coach who worked with Adams for several years there, had to say about him...
“He’s going to help you win, regardless of who he’s fitting in with. He does literally all of the little things that are continuous on possessions to help your team win, from communicating in pick-and-roll, to communicating in transition, to screening angles, to helping your team in huddles. Obviously loose balls and offensive rebounds. Those are transferrable skills that can fit any team, any personnel group.”
A player like that will still have plenty of fans around the league regardless of the so-called demise of the traditional big man.
So who might need a traditional big man? Who might be involved in those chats and rumours? The Washington Wizards would be a funky one to get him back with old mate Russell Westbrook... just a pity they parted ways with Scotty Brooks or they’d really be getting the band back together. The Boston Celtics have been rumoured with him in the past, Brad Stevens is supposedly a fan, in fact the word is they wanted to draft him after traded up to the 13th pick way back when but then OKC took him at 12 instead (the Celtics got Kelly Olynyck). Stevens is now in a front office role for Boston so hmm. The Dallas Mavericks are an intriguing fit if they decide they need to get off of Kristaps Porzingis’ contract. The New York Knicks just made the playoffs bringing back that gritty low-scoring Thibsball that Adams would thrive in. Hell, maybe Sean Marks will do a fella kiwi a solid at the Brooklyn Nets – Steve and KD go way back after all. That’s just off the top of the head, don’t even worry about it.
This ain’t to say that a trade is imminent... but it does kinda feel like something we oughta be prepared for. When every little development seems to add a small bit more evidence to the case for trading him then eventually that all piles up. Stan Van Gundy’s presence wasn’t any guarantee that Adams would still be there come game one next season but without SVG around the impression is that Adams is exposed on this roster. But then again, so is everybody other than Williamson and Ingram. That’s the gig.
Support the Kiwi Steve yarns on TNC by chipping in on our Patreon, por favor
Also sign up to our Substack, whack an ad, tell a mate about us, all them good things
Keep cool but care