Hit The Pause Button

Ya boy Steven (aka Steve-o, aka Tipene, aka AquaMane) has been on a statistical tear lately. Us enlightened folks understand that the base stats are secondary when it comes to the prowess of Steven Adams but it’s still cool when a spell like this comes around where he’s doing things like this...

Granted that tweet was sent out before the game away to Portland in which Adams was a bit mud on the second night of a back to back. After putting 14 on the Pelicans, he was held scoreless against the Blazers until three minutes into the fourth quarter. Probably fair to say that Coach Jenkins left him in for too long in that fourth as Memphis weren’t quite able to complete the comeback, going down 123-119 in their last game before All Stars despite 44 points from Ja Morant. Broke a six-game winning streak. All goods, the Grizzlies are still hitting up the All Star Break with a 41-19 record sitting third in the Western Conference.

All Stars are always a nice time to take stock of the season and how things are poised. After this it’s a sprint to the playoffs. For some teams that means chasing top seeds. For others it means holding onto or sneaking into a play-in position. For others it means it’s time to give the youngsters a run with an eye on draft positions. Embrace the tank.

The All Star Break is also a convenient chance to put the ol’ feet up for a couple of days, a rarity within any typically frantic NBA schedule. Between travel and games, teams barely even have a chance for proper training sessions let alone rest days. Steven Adams was involved in All Star festivities in his rookie season as part of the Rising Stars Challenge, which was no doubt a pretty sweet experience, but other than that he’s always embraced the couple days off. To be honest, he’s usually tended to need them.

Steven Adams has a reputation for not being as impactful in the last few months of seasons. Not too hard to link these two ideas given that he’s someone who accrues a lot of damage over the course of the season. Whether that reputation is true or not, it’s a genuine thing that people have claimed. And to be fair there’s some hefty evidence in favour of it. For one thing, he very clearly does get battered and bruised doing what he does. Over an 82 game season (or less in recent years), those knocks will add up. You can see it with your own eyes. Playing through injuries is always gonna limit a guy and the numbers do seem to back that idea up to some extent...

Those are just simple per game averages, which often don’t tell the story as they’re influenced by minutes per game but in this case if his minutes are dropping then that’s a major part of the yarn. Green text is the higher, red is the lower on either side of the dividing line that is the All Star Break. Note the plus-minus factor too.

This is merely something to keep an eye on over the rest of the season. Adams is averaging a brisk 26 mins per game this season so he’s not having to carry the workload that he has in past campaigns. Should bode well for him the rest of the way because this is very much a team with designs on a long playoff experience. Mentioned in Kiwi Steve #7 how Adams dwarfs almost the entire rest of his team in career playoff games but he hasn’t made it past the first round since that legendary run in 2016 – when the Thunder blew a 3-2 lead thanks largely to one of the all-time playoff performances from Klay Thompson in game six.

The Steven Adams Revenge Game

Regular readers of this column – and general non-dumb NBA fans – will understand that when Steven Adams and Jonas Valanciunas were traded for each other in the offseason it was far more than a like-for-like transaction. There were also draft swaps and New Orleans dumped Eric Bledsoe’s contract and it was from that trade that Memphis got Zaire Williams. Plenty more going on. Not to mention the two contrasting directions of the franchises.

New Orleans were taking a step back in order to clarify things around Zion Williamson (and Brandon Ingram), getting rid of two expensive veterans in Adams and Bledsoe. Memphis were trying to embrace their young core too but in a way that empowered them to take it to the next level. By swapping the post-monster Valanciunas for the no-maintenance offence of Adams, they freed up several shots per game to distribute amongst guys like Ja Morant and Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr whilst also allowing them to play at a quicker pace to suit those guys.

Williamson is yet to feature for the Pels this season. It’s been a mess of slow injury recovery and poor communication. But Valanciunas has been really good for them in the same way that he was really good for Memphis last time around... only with way more three pointers. The idea that JV was a massive upgrade in spacing on Adams was overblown at the time of the trade – he only attempted 57 three pointers last season. But this term he’s popping 2.3 attempts per game and hitting them at 38.5%. Legit stuff. Fair play to the bloke.

Meanwhile Adams is playing some of the best ball of his career for a surging Grizzlies team and as much as the instinct is to compare and contrast the two fellas to see who ‘won’ the trade... that’d be an impulsive and emotional thing to do, missing that context mentioned earlier. Fact is, there’s a genuine case to be made that both teams won. That both teams got what they wanted out of that trade. A mutually beneficial shuffling of the decks. Ain’t it grand?

Having said that... when Steven Adams played away in New Orleans this week, up against Big Jonas, the Lithuanian Leader, there must have been some part of him that really wanted to do well. Make a point. Hammer something home after spending a year getting unfairly scapegoated for a less than ideal fit that was in no way his fault. Especially not when the brief changed drastically mid-season as Point Zion emerged. It was the first time in his career where Adams has had his reputation been roughed up like that. Safe to say he’s restored the glory in Memphis but yeah it was grim at times. Gotta show the old crew what they turned their back on.

This wasn’t the first time that he’s played New Orleans this season. There was a game back in November which NO won 112-101... but that was before the Grizz flipped the switch. Adams did have a quality game there with 15 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals & 3 blocks (JV had 15p/9r/3a/1s/2b, very similar) but the team wasn’t in the place it is now. This was the first reunion since everything clicked. And say what do ya know...

The game began with Valanciunas and Adams trading buckets, each driving to the rim and finishing against the other. But that was about the last time where the two international big men were on even pegging. Valanciunas was able to chip away with points, as he always will, but he was largely kept off the boards by Adams and mates. They also picked on him in pick and roll defence and ensured he had the worse plus-minus of any Pelicans player.

On the other hand, Adams was feasting all night in pretty much every stat category. Didn’t have a block but he did have 5 assists to go with 14 points, 13 rebounds, and a steal. He shot 7/8 from the field (although he did miss all three free throws) and then his backup Brandon Clarke came in and shot 8/9 from the field himself. The Pelicans had no answer for what the Grizz big men were up to... and this was a game in which Ja Morant sat out with a minor injury too. Tyus Jones stepped into that starting PG role and responded with a career-best 27 points (as well as 9 assists). Next man up mentality right there. After going ahead at 5-4 with 10:02 remaining in the first quarter, the Grizzlies never trailed again. They were up by double digits for more than half of the game. One more blowout win in a season full of them.

Newly acquired Pels guard CJ McCollum said afterwards that the Grizzlies “killed us on the O-boards” and you already know who was largely responsible for that. Adams had 6 of his team’s 18 total offensive rebounds and Memphis were able to score 27 second chance points from those extra opportunities. In terms of total rebounds they ran the show 49-34. Nice and emphatic. And a lovely memo to Pelicans fans as to what they might’ve had (although things have worked out fine for Adams since, to be fair).

There is one other aspect to playing against your old team: the chance to meet up with past mates. Pretty telling that as the final second elapsed in that game, Steven Adams and Jaxson Hayes shared an embrace...

Then after the buzzer, as players were filtering off the court and media/staff were filtering onto it, Adams and Willy Hernangomez had a good chat. Looked like it may have also come with some handy tips from Steve-o, the senior big man for the Pels last season still out there taking these blokes under his wing...

There’s also that gif in the tweet right at the top of them hugging just before that ‘here, let me show you’ moment. Adams claimed last season that Hernangomez was probably his best friend on that roster and he also worked plenty with Hayes, who made enormous developments under the tutelage of his starting centre. Like, the two guys who specifically sought him out at the end of the game were the two backup bigs that he probably spent the most time with in New Orleans. Feels like that wasn’t a coincidence.

Connections

Ja Morant: “When my big screens his man when I'm coming off, I think y'all need to give that credit to Steve-O (Steven Adams). He told me about it, I did it one time and now we just have that connection.”

That was Ja speaking after a win over the Spurs on January 26 (and quoted from an article in Commerical Appeal). Here’s a longer excerpt from that article:

The defense yells as 6-foot-11, 265-pound Steven Adams jogs to the center of the 3-point line. Adams turns, lowers his hands together below his waist and becomes a brick wall as Ja Morant dribbles and slithers past him with a defender bumping Adams and chasing behind Morant. Morant slows down to shield the defender onto his back while Adams rolls toward the rim, blocking the bigger defender trying to help. The result is a wide open layup for Morant.

This play happens almost every Memphis Grizzlies game and is one reason why Morant is putting together a historical season in the paint by a guard entering Saturday's game at the Orlando Magic (12-41). No guard in the past 25 years has led the NBA in paint points. Morant’s 16 paint points per game for the Grizzlies (36-18) ranks ahead of stars like Milwaukee's Giannis Antetokounmpo and Denver's Nikola Jokic. No guard has averaged more than 15 paint points in the past 25 seasons.

Dwyane Wade, Russell Westbrook and Derrick Rose are names who come to mind as standout paint scorers as guards. Westbrook’s 15 paint points per game in 2019-20 is the closest to Morant’s numbers. According to ESPN Stats & Info, Morant's 14 games of 20 or more paint points is the most for any guard in the last 25 years. Westbrook and Wade had seasons of 12 games.

For the record, Ja Morant averaged 10.6 points in the paint per game last season. He’s made a genuine leap into fringe MVP candidacy this season and one of the major ways in which he’s become more effective is his utterly dominant paint scoring... something that cannot be a coincidence given he’s now playing with one of the very best (and most diligent) screeners in the sport.

Morant is scoring 15.0 points each game from his drives (as well as a cheeky but not inconsequential 1.7 assists from drives too). And on plays when he’s the pick and roll ball-handler, he’s shooting 48.4% on 12.1 plays per night.

Again, those are massive numbers. Up near the top of the NBA in all of them. And each has a significant reliance on his starting centre in order for maximum efficiency. Morant’s sheer speed and athleticism means he can do plenty all by himself but it’s pretty clear that Adams has helped him take the next step. Like, Ja literally said so himself.

The Boyz

When they say that the Grizzlies have a great culture, that everybody’s got each other’s backs, this is pretty much what they’re talking about. A rookie standing up for the oldest guy on the roster. Adams didn’t really need the help, not sure he even noticed what Mason Plumlee did, but Zaire Williams certainly noticed and Ja Morant noticed that Zaire Williams noticed.

Also, strange way for Plumlee to treat the bloke who saved his life a couple years ago...

Some people just have no sense of gratitude, aye?

That’s far from the only example of Grizz dudes being wholesomely (and sometimes not so wholesomely – ask LeBron lol - but it’s all good fun) supportive of each other. They’re playing fantastic basketball right now, everyone’s pulling in the same direction, and the lads are loving it. The vibes are immaculate. For another example, how about Ja Morant’s recognition as an All Star? Steven Adams was leading the charge to engulf the bro immediately afterwards...

Or getting up in support of Ja Morant’s TYUS STONES post-game call after Tyus Stones’ career high scoring night (in place of an injured Morant) in the win over the Pelicans. Hell yeah, T.

Or a little in-game hype...

And those are literally just a few examples, all from within the last week, and all only including one player in particular. The rest of them are out there making moments too. This team is so much fun.

SLAM DUNKS

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