Answering The Big Questions About Steven Adams Getting Traded To The Houston Rockets
The news came through at 12:41pm on Friday in the same way that all NBA news comes through: via a tweet from Adrian Wojnarowski...
The Memphis Grizzlies era of Steven Adams basketball has come to an end. The next time we see him on the court it will be for the Houston Rockets, who’ll become his fourth NBA franchise (all of them in the Western Conference). A new team means new dynamics and probably a new role. It also means closing the book on whatever hopes we might have had for Funaki’s future alongside that funky Grizzlies core as they attempt to push on into championship contention. Lots to unpack here. Lots of complicated emotions. You’ve probably got questions... so here are some answers.
Wait, What?
Indeed. There had been talk about the possibility of a Memphis Grizzlies trade, with Adams mentioned as a candidate with fellas such as Luke Kennard, Xavier Tillman, and Ziaire Williams also amongst the names being thrown around. The trade deadline is right around the corner so now is the time for wheeling and dealing. This wasn’t entirely out of the blue... but yeah it was still a bit of a shock.
The Houston Rockets get Steven Adams. The Memphis Grizzlies, in return, get the expiring contract of Victor Oladipo as well as three second round picks (two in 2024 and one in 2025). That’s all there was too it. Adams is under contract for $12.6 million both this season and next due to the two-year extension he signed in October 2022.
Isn’t He Injured Though?
Yes, he is. In fact we recently ticked over the 12-month anniversary of his last NBA appearance. Adams did play preseason a few months back but his knee did not respond as hoped and he ended up having surgery which ruled him out of the entire 2023-24 season. During that span he also turned 30 and with those things combined there has been quite a bit of internet chat about whether this trade was in response to ongoing worries about his availability.
First of all, if that was the case then the Rockets would not have traded for him. If anything, Adams getting traded should offer encouragement about his impending return – particularly as Woj’s announcement made a stern point of saying that he is expected to make a full recovery for next season. The fact that his injury has lingered so long is because they took ages to send him to surgery. If they’d just done that in the first place then he’d already be back – it’s not a bunch of recurring issues but one singular issue that hasn’t been fixed properly. And that, frankly, is as much on the team as it is the player. The Grizzlies managed that whole thing shambolically. It’s an idea that was explored more deeply on this very same website justa few months ago.
As to this injury-prone idea that continues to linger, here’s a direct quote from that previous article...
Prior to this PCL injury, he’d played nine and a half seasons in the NBA and only twice had an injury absence of five or more games. In February 2015 he fractured a finger that needed surgery and missed 11 games for the Oklahoma City Thunder. Late in his lone season with the New Orleans Pelicans he suffered a toe injury which saw him miss four games, return for one, then get shut down for the remaining six with the team out of the playoff race by then (and, as we later found out, preparing to sack Stan van Gundy and trade Steven Adams). There are only two other instances of him missing four games at a time and both of those were because of covid protocols rather than physical injuries.
If all things go to plan and he’s back for game one of the 2024-25 season then he will have missed 118 consecutive regular season games plus at least six playoff games – given how poorly the Grizz are tracking without him at the moment it seems unlikely they’ll make the playoffs this season. In his entire career prior to this injury he had played 706 out of a possible 764 regular season games and 66 out of a possible 72 playoff games. 58 regular season games missed, 6 playoff games missed. That’s 92.4% and 91.7% availability.
The fact is that the Memphis Grizzlies have an appalling medical reputation of late and Steven Adams’ knee is only one example. Recent seasons has seen them plagued by injuries. Maybe this is simply bad luck, it certainly could be. But it’s hard to think of any extended period at all while Adams was in town when they were able to roll with all of their top guys at once.
Those first two seasons with Adams, the ideal starting five was: Ja Morant, Desmond Bane, Dillon Brooks, Jaren Jackson, and Steven Adams. That quintet was outstanding when they were available. In 2021-22 they averaged +25 points per 100 possessions... but only played 109 minutes together and just 12 more in the playoffs (all in the Minnesota series, in which Adams got benched prior to catching covid... Big Tips was then outrageously good against Golden State in the next round but Ja Morant had gotten hurt before Adams returned). Then in 2022-23 they logged 128 and a half minutes, still outscoring teams by 10.1 pts/100poss, with none in the playoffs. It wasn’t one man or one injury that kept them apart. Every one of those guys had their own problems at some stage.
Obviously this season was spoiled from day one by the Adams injury but even then it’s been a mess. Morant came back from suspension and then promptly needed season-ending shoulder surgery. Bane has missed the last month with an ankle issue. Marcus Smart recently injured his finger and will miss at least six weeks. Derrick Rose has hardly played. Brandon Clarke is still recovering from his achilles tear last season. Two games after the Adams trade, they played the Boston Celtics with only 2/15 fully contracted players available for selection. If there are questions about Adams’ fitness moving forward, that might have been more of a Memphis problem than an Adams problem.
Also... Victor Oladipo is injured too. Neither he nor Adams have played a minute this season. Oladipo had surgery on his left patella (knee) after getting injured early in the previous playoffs. Unlike Adams, there is currently no date when he’s expected to be available by. There is a chance he returns this season but there is also a chance that the Grizzlies don’t actually want him. That’s not why they made this trade.
Okay Then, Why Oh Why Did The Memphis Grizzlies Do This?
Memphis Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins: “Big-time thanks to (Adams). Opportunities come throughout the league. We got to make some decisions. Obviously we're excited about the flexibility it creates for us... The impact he made was a big one for us. Obviously we're going to miss him. Hopefully he gets healthy. He's been working really hard in his rehab. He had a huge impact not just on the floor, but also in the locker room.”
Flexibility. That special attribute that every champion team needs. Why keep a starting centre who has a 79-39 winning record in the 118 regular season games that he played for the team (who are 46-49 in games without him) when you can trade him for flexibility? Seems like the Memphis Grizzlies are a team that needs to learn the value of having a bird in the hand.
In fairness, something did have to give. Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson are on max contracts and Desmond Bane’s kicks in next season. Chuck in Marcus Smart, Luke Kennard, Brandon Clarke, and Steven Adams all also earning eight figure salaries and they were right on the fringes of hitting the second level of the luxury tax (the lux tax rules were altered in the newest CBA), which would enforce restrictions on their roster building as well as the inherent financial friskiness. By removing one of those second-tier contracts they bring themselves back into a breathable space for next season. With all the injuries, this season is already a write-off so next season is where the entirety of the focus is being aimed with this trade and any others they might undertake over the next few days.
Now, did they trade the right bloke? That’s a subjective question that everyone can answer for themselves. Smart is a former DPOY winner who was brought in to do what Dillon Brooks does but with a better jump shot and more leadership/playoff experience. Luke Kennard is one of the silkiest three-point shooters in the entire league (tragic that he and Adams never got to share the court properly). Brandon Clarke is a bouncy big man that they drafted themselves and have high hopes for. He’s not as good as Adams, doesn’t affect the game in as many ways, but he’s younger (albeit coming back from an achilles tear) and therefore aligns nicely with the rest of their self-drafted core of Morant, Bane & JJJ.
Thing is, you don’t make trades by yourself. It takes two to tango and the Houston Rockets wanted Steven Adams. That was the offer that was available and they took it. If they’d asked for Brandon Clarke then Memphis might potentially have traded him instead. Maybe even Luke Kennard too (although they’ve reportedly knocked back any interest in Smart). There’s no sense that the Grizzlies had given up on Adams as a player. They just couldn’t afford to keep everyone thus tough decisions had to be made. Maybe that knee has made the decision easier for them, but this move makes just as much sense as a purely financial transaction. There’s no need to speculate beyond that.
What Exactly Is The Plan For Memphis Moving Forward?
As wonderfully as Adams may have played in Memphis – and there’s a genuine case that his 2021-22 campaign was the best of his entire career, with the boosted assists and rebounds making up for the drop in scoring compared to his peak years in OKC – he was never placed in the same category with Morant/Bane/Jackson. Nor should he have been, to be fair. His age kept him apart: it just wasn’t reasonable to think he could be a long-term core player for the Grizz in the same way as those other lads.
So there was always an inkling that he might be someone who hangs around for a couple of years, helps this team take the required steps forward, then moves aside. Particularly with this lingering plan that they seem to have for Jaren Jackson to play more centre. The NBA does love a centre with shooting range, that’s no lie. Granted, Jackson’s tended to look most dominant (especially defensively) with a freer role alongside Steven Adams wherein Adams can lock fellas down around the rim with his rebounding potential and his box outs and then JJJ gets to come swooping blindside with highlight-reel blocks.
Not to mention the added physical demands of playing the five compared to the four. Having to do battle with the most massive bloke on the other team for 48 minutes tends to wear a fella down. Anthony Davis famously doesn’t like it, and he’s a pretty good comparison for JJJ. But Jackson has already been tallying up plenty of centre experience since Adams got injured, showing the benefits of having learned from the man himself. Whether you rate it or not, this is definitely going to be something we see a lot of in the future. Here’s a quote from that same Taylor Jenkins interview in which he hypes up the JJJ at C idea post-Steve-o...
“Learning that development opportunity for (Jackson) with the ball in his hands more as a screener. Having some shooting around him. But also, the Steven archetype. Someone that's big and physical, does a great job setting screens, rebounder, facilitator. All things that we want Jaren to continue to grow in as well. Those are ongoing dialogues. We got different avenues that we're going to look to explore.”
Jenkins has a weird way of talking with these basketball cliches all swirling around, never entirely committing to an idea (remember when it was “pretty confirmed” that Adams was “most likely out for the playoffs”?). Basically what he’s saying there is that JJJ will get more minutes at the five and that they’re going to try and find a mini-Steve for the rest of it. A Steven Adams Archetype. They had the man himself, then they traded him, now they’re going to sign a worse version of the same thing. If they can even find one (actually, Bismack Biyombo was doing a decent job of it at the start of the season and then they cut him for some reason).
Gotta be honest, that sounds like a dubious plan. But, hey, that’s their problem. We’re now hopping onto the Houston Rockets wagon.
Sweet, So What Were The Houston Rockets Up To With This Trade, And What’s The Plan For Steve-O?
They wanted a player. Memphis wanted financial breathing room, Houston wanted a player. The Rockets were perennial almost-contenders while James Harden was there but since he’s left they’ve bottomed out. Their previous three seasons they mustered tallies of 17, 20, and 22 wins. Ah but during that time they were able to hoard up some mean draft picks, as you do. Picks that they’ve cashed in for exciting young players such as Jalen Green, Jabari Smith Jr., Amen Thompson, Tari Eason, and Cam Whitmore.
They fired Stephen Silas in the offseason and hired Ime Udoka with the clear intention of flicking the switch and contending for the playoffs. They’re only on the fringes of that race as things stand, but the progress has been clear – especially defensively. One of the main reasons for that has been the emergence of Turkish centre Alperen Şengün who is right there in contention for Most Improved Player this season. Şengün is the starting centre. But coach Udoka desperately wanted someone with size and strength to pair with him, playing 20-ish minutes per night, ideally with sturdy defensive credentials and veteran leadership to impart amongst his youthful roster. A bit of rebounding would not go astray either. Wouldn’t you know it, he’s found a bloke that does all of those things and more.
A back-up role will be an unusual one for Adams, who has been a starter in every NBA season since his rookie campaign. That’d mean a drop in minutes and therefore in production also... though twenty minutes would still be a very chunky role for a bench player. And Şengün does have a jump shot so it’s not impossible they could find a way to get both on the court together. Şengün hasn’t really been tried as a power forward to that extent, but then again there’d been no reason for that experiment before.
There were other centres that Houston could have targeted who’d have been ready to rock from day one, and therefore help them try and get into the playoffs this season. They chose Steven Adams instead. That says that he was the player that they specifically wanted. That says that they trust his recovery process. That says that they are willing to ease up on this season in order to go bigger for the next one.
Aussie big man Jock Landale had been the backup centre for most of this season but this pretty much marks the end for him in H-Town. That ship had arguably already sailed with Jeff Green having already swallowed up most of his minutes. Boban Marjanovic is the other centre on the Rockets but he’s not really gotten anything going either. Elsewhere Fred VanVleet and Dillon Brooks have been holding things down in the starting five alongside youngsters Smith, Green, and Şengün. Yep, the very same Dillon Brooks who was teammates with Adams in Memphis those first two seasons. Apparently they’ve already reconnected. Always nice to see a friendly face when you turn up to a new job.
In many ways, this situation is a lot like the one that Steven Adams arrived at in Memphis. A collection of obscenely talented young players all drafted by the franchise but in need of some experience around them. They even have the same small forward as Memphis had. The main difference is that the Rockets are a year or two behind that so they’re not yet having to deal with all those max extensions arriving at once (and they have more tasty draft picks to replenish things with if they do need to trade someone for monetary reasons – Jalen Green is the most likely to be sacrificed in that eventuality).
Memphis still haven’t kicked on the way that they ought to have, largely because of injuries and Ja Morant’s silly behaviour. Now they’re at risk of getting overtaken by the next wave of rebuilds. Oklahoma City are good again, in case you hadn’t heard. That would have been a fun/sentimental trade destination for Big Steve, as OKC ponder whether Chet Holmgren needs a mentor the way that Alperen Şengün is getting one. And now the Houston Rockets have done one of the winningest things there is to do: they’ve brought in Steven Adams, a bloke who has a winning record in every season he’s played except the one that we shall not speak of which he spent in New Orleans.
And you know what else? This is a full circle moment for Sir Steve because way back when you may recall he was drafted with a pick that came to Oklahoma City via the infamous (original) James Harden Trade. That draft pick, of course, belonged to the Houston Rockets. Now he’s actually going to be playing for them.
If you appreciate the yarns, know that all this mahi is only made possible by the kind souls who support us on Patreon or with a Paid Substack
Also helps to whack an ad, make a Buy Me A Coffee donation, and tell your mates about us
Keep cool but care