Steven Adams Is Rocking And Rolling Within The Houston Rockets Double Big Line-Up
It’s been a difficult experience trying to track Steven Adams this season, hasn’t it? A real lesson in the art of patience. At first he was in and out of the side, stuck on a minutes restriction and sitting out of every few games entirely. Gotta be careful with that knee after so long on the sidelines... plus there was some initial rust to deal with. Not to mention that he was settling into a new team with a new set of teammates. It was only in December that he began to feature in back-to-backs and it’s only since the turn of the year that he’s begun to shed those earlier restrictions. As he’s done so, we’ve finally begun to see the Steven Adams that we know and love. Huge offensive rebounding numbers. Big plus/minus impacts. Screen assists. Box outs. The works.
Of course, he’s doing this almost exclusively off the bench for the Houston Rockets so even when he turns in top numbers he’s still often stuck around 10-15 minutes of action even with his restrictions being a thing of the past. Didn’t help that he’s had lingering ankle issues along the way... but even when he’s fully healthy and ripping in like days of old the fact remains that he is a backup player for the Houston Rockets on account of a bloke from Türkiye called Alperen Şengün.
Şengün got selected to his first NBA All Star game earlier this season, in his fourth year in the league. He plays 31 minutes per night and he averages 19.2 points and 10.4 rebounds with 4.9 assists. This guy was drafted and developed by the Rockets. He’s their most talented player... and he operates in the same position that Steven Adams does. That’s no shocking revelation - we knew this was the case heading into the season. But what if it doesn’t have to be Şengün or Adams? What if it can be Şengün and Adams?
Because something very curious has been happening in Houston. Something that we only saw in tiny glimpses earlier on but over the past two months it’s evolved into a regularity that’s got Rockets fans very excited. That something is the Double Big Line-up.
This was an idea that’s been pondered since day one of Steven Adams being a Houston Rocket. Funaki hasn’t really paired with another big man before, he’s always been the starting centre – ever since he overtook Kendrick Perkins way back in his second season in the league. But he’s always had highly skilled power forwards who like to operate in the paint alongside him. From Serge Ibaka to Zion Williamson to Jaren Jackson Jr... although maybe put an asterisk on Williamson because that New Orleans season sucked and the Adams-Zion combo had a negative points differential over that year. They never reached the “unpunkable” status that Stan Van Gundy touted in preseason. Yet the point remains that Adams spent his formative years next to Ibaka and it was with Adams alongside that JJJ won Defensive Player of the Year and made the All Stars for the first time. Those guys aren’t exact like-for-likes with Sengun... but Alpy played a fair bit of power forward back in Europe so there’s definitely something in there. He’s definitely got a game that translates to the four position.
The double big line-up wasn’t seen during the early part of the season as Adams focussed simply on ramping up his match fitness after so long out injured. In mid-January the pair overlapped briefly for a few cheeky individual plays. Finally, on 8 February 2025 (in game 56 out of 82), we got to see a proper test of the experiment. It was the beginning of the third quarter of an away game versus the Dallas Mavericks and coach Ime Udoka sent out a five-man group of: Jalen Green, Amen Thompson, Dillon Brooks, Alperen Sengun, and Steven Adams. That group played nearly eight minutes together during which they cut a 15-point deficit to a 5-point deficit before Adams was subbed out for Tari Eason. It worked well enough that Coach Udoka went back to it for a few minutes in the fourth, though Dallas ended up winning that game 116-105. Nevertheless, a beast was unleashed.
That test became a genuine experiment in a pair of big wins against New Orleans in early March. Steven Adams played roughly 18 minutes in each game and had +17 and +16 plus/minuses despite only scoring 9 combined points across the two nights. That’s some prime subtle Steve-o influence... but what’s really funky is that 17 of his 37 minutes in those two games came with Alperen Sengun also on the court. In those 17 minutes, the Rockets had a 128.9 offensive rating and 78.9 defensive rating for a cheeky +50 net rating. And that got people talking.
Steven Adams: “It's good because it's something new. It's just engaging. Also, a lot of my career has been spent that way as well, playing double big line-up anyway. It's just good, just figuring it out and I feel like we play with each other pretty well, just gravitate the defence. In a sort of way it's a different look, so I think it's a pretty useful tool going forward.”
Alperen Sengun: “I had a lot of big guys next [in Europe] to me so nothing new for me. But in my NBA career it's new. I already know what I can do, open space for my teammates. I think when we play me and Steven, too, it opens space a lot on Amen and Tari, too. They can get a lot of offensive rebounds out there. So we just got good. We’re testing, it's working. That's what we'll keep doing.”
Ime Udoka: “[Adams] was huge as far as giving us that size with the double-big lineup, rebounding, screening, all the intangibles that he does, and so just a presence in the middle. So doesn't matter what he does as far as scoring, he can impact the game in every other way and we felt that.”
We’re now only a few games away from the playoffs, with the Houston Rockets locked into the second seed and plotting a very deep run, and those Sengun/Adams line-ups have held extremely steady in their dominance. In 156 minutes together, that Offensive Rating is now 122.8 points per 100 possessions and the Defensive Rating is sitting at 91.1, giving them a Net Rating of +31.7. The Rockets are grabbing 51.8% of offensive rebounds and 66.5% of overall rebounds while those two are on the floor together. That’s a lot of numbers so here’s a quick translation into everyday English: The Houston Rockets Double Big Line-Up is absolutely destroying teams and nobody’s found an answer to it.
The main reasons teams don’t usually try to overload the paint like this are fears over defensive flexibility – worrying that smaller, faster teams will be able to target their lack of switching – and fears over shooting and spacing. Those are valid points but it depends on the players available. What might not work for most players might still work for him because Steven Adams is a unique talent. People talk about spacing like it’s a gravitational force caused by defenders having to close out good shooters yet good shooters don’t need that much room to get an uncontested shot away. One hard screen can do the trick and, oh yeah, that’s right, Steven Adams is the finest screen-setter on the damn planet.
Sengun is only shooting 23.3% from threes this season and Adams has only made one triple in his entire decade-long career. Despite that, the Rockets are hitting their triples at 39% during Double Big line-ups. The Rockets only six two-man pairings with at least 100 mins played that’ve provided more accurate deep shooting than that... and three of them also include Steven Adams. As he’s done throughout his career, his teammates shoot better when Adams is on the court even though he offers zero jump shooting threat himself. Take the hint: it doesn’t matter.
As for defence, mate, you only have to look at the Defensive Ratings. Switchability is clearly not an issue. Sengun has the skills to stay active against power forwards and muscle up against centres. They rebound everything. They have an incredibly low foul rate. And opponents are shooting at an equally-incredibly low rate against them, probably in large part because they can’t get to the rim.
Curiously, the Rockets usually defend in a zone formation during these phases, which is something they almost never do otherwise. That could potentially leave them vulnerable to teams that can hit from the midrange... but every system has its flaws. No team is undefeatable. Houston’s Double Big stuff seems to be getting pretty close though – the Rockets have outscored teams by 113 points in those 156 minutes.
Here’s an example of that 2-3 zone in action...
All these things are connected and reputations matter. Steven Adams has a reputation as one of the greatest offensive rebounders of his era so when he’s on the floor, opponents hesitate about helping on the edge when they know it’d mean leaving Funaki wide open for the second-effort. It’s not only his screening that creates space, you see? Although the screening does help and Adams is currently leading the NBA in both screen assists per 36 minutes and points generated by screen assists per 36 mins. So he’s got that in his bag too.
Last week, Ime Udoka took things to the outer limit when he made the thrilling decision to start with Double Bigs in a game against the Oklahoma City Thunder – the two top teams in the West and thus an opportunity to test the theory against a potential playoff opponent. With Dillon Brooks suspended, coach opted to leave Jabari Smith on the bench and load up on the extremes. Adams and Sengun down low with Amen Thompson on the wing; Jalen Green and Fred van Vleet in the backcourt to complete the set. This was only the third start all season for Steven Adams and the other two came when Sengun was injured (there were also two other games when Sengun was injured but Jock Landale got one of those starts with Adams still in his cautious phase and for the other one they went small).
The Thunder did something similar: Chet Holmgren played PF while Isaiah Hartenstein began at C. Not an abnormal thing at all for them, for the last couple months that’s been their preference, but that preference lined up nicely for Houston as it meant Sengun vs Holmgren stretching things out on the edge with Adams vs Hartenstein under the rim. No worries about overcrowding there... Sengun scored 31 points on 11/21 shooting with all of his shots coming from inside the painted area. He was loving it. And within that initial six minute stint of Double Bigs, Steven Adams got two steals that led to fastbreak buckets, created space for an open Jalen Green three thanks to that aforementioned rebounding gravity (Hartenstein being too scared to switch off him), fed a beautiful bounce pass for a cutting FVV who then assisted a Sengun bucket, and of course he also grabbed a couple of rebounds. Impacting the game in many ways, like his coach says.
Adams would finish the game with 8 points and 12 rebounds with the Rockets outscoring the Thunder by seven points during his 23 minutes. Houston won 125-111. Not all of that mahi happened alongside Sengun but they started the third quarter together and overlapped during the second and fourth. This was another huge trial for the Double Bigs and once again it passed with flying colours... against the team with the best record in the entire NBA (who’d been on an 11-game winning streak prior to that loss). The verdict is clear. The jury need not deliberate. All that’s left is to unleash this not-quite-secret-weapon in the playoffs.
So... why didn’t Ime Udoka try this sooner? Here are a few theories:
While Adams and Sengun have the right profiles to pull it off, this is an unusual strategy in the modern NBA and thus not necessarily one that would have sprung to mind. Tradition and expectation carry much weight in the National Basketball Association.
On a more practical level, the zone formation defence would have required some adjustment and practice time is limited when games are happening every other day. It would have taken awhile for Udoka to feel comfortable unleashing it in games even if this was his plan all along.
Steven Adams wasn’t in any place to be scaling up until after the New Year. He was on a minutes restriction to begin with, he wasn’t playing back-to-backs, he was getting lots of scheduled rests. The focus was purely on getting him fit and healthy again before anything else so any line-ups tweaks had to wait until later.
The Rockets were winning games all along. They didn’t need to lay all of their aces on the table at once. The way it’s panned out, the Rockets have shown enough of the Double Big line-up to put the fear of the almighty into opponents without overplaying it and exposing any potential chinks in the armour. They’ve primed this strategy for the playoffs when it matters most.
Teammate of the Year
Did you know that the NBA have an award for Teammate of the Year? It’s the Twyman-Stokes Award named after Jack Twyman and Maurice Stokes who were teammates in the 1950s up until Stokes had to retire due to a head injury suffered during a game. That injury later degenerated and he became paralysed, with Twyman becoming his legal guardian over the final years of his life. Lovely stuff.
They’ve given this award out every year since 2013 with fellas such as Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, Damian Lillard, and Jrue Holiday having won it in the past. Jrue’s actually won it three times. The award is there to recognise: “the player deemed the best teammate based on selfless play, on and off the court leadership as a mentor and role model to other NBA players, and commitment and dedication to their team”. Seems like it was made for Steven Adams to win... and perhaps this year he will, having been named to the 12-man shortlist from which the victor will be selected.
Per the Houston Chronicle, here are some teammate references for Big Tips...
Dillon Brooks: “There’s a lot of stories I can’t tell, but he shows how great a teammate he is. He’s unselfish on the court, off the court. Helps grow the young guys on each and every team he plays on. And if he wins the award, it’s well-deserved. You need guys like that on your team. We have multiple guys like that. Steve, somehow in the games and even off the court, he brings guys together and brings the chemistry closer.”
Reed Sheppard: “He’s always in a good mood, he’s always gonna put a smile on everyone’s face. He’s always cracking jokes. He talks a lot. Good communicator. So yeah, I think those are some reasons why.”
Jabari Smith Jr: “He’s been around for a long time. He encourages everybody. He plays hard and he’s a competitor. He’s real. We can talk to him about anything. So he’s just real approachable.”
Aaron Holiday: “He’s a good dude, on and off the court. He shows up to work every day and shows the younger guys how to go about things and just leads us.”
Ime Udoka: “We knew once he got healthy, he’d get back to what he did throughout his whole career. He’s always been one of the best at it [and] has added to what we do pretty naturally with some guys. And so, like I said, we have Tari, Amen, some wings that really do it well. Alperen’s been good as well, Jabari’s improved in that area. But Steven’s kind of the head of the snake, especially when he comes in off the bench. Playing with the double-big lineups has been good. They kind of beat teams up there. But to your point, it takes two or three to get him off the glass sometimes, obviously going to clean up and you’ve seen other guys be the recipient of that. But it was a matter of him getting his legs back under him, rhythm back under him and extending his minutes, and you’d see those numbers go up like they are.”
The Ungrateful Mason Plumlee
You probably already saw this but how about the bro Mason Plumlee doing the thing that NBA players all say nobody ought to do: he tried to fight Steven Adams. That’d be bad enough on its own but there’s another element at play here because Adams famously turned down an easy rebound a few years ago to keep Plumlee from falling awkwardly at risk of injury. Yet here was Plums showing no gratitude at all... and what’s more is that this isn’t even his first such incident. There was also one when Adams was at the Grizzlies where MP shoved SA out of bounds then dropped the ball on him. It’s in the video above.
The scuffle wasn’t worth much. The Americans got excited but it was only a bit of push-and-shove with a whole crowd of onlookers getting in the way. Even so, both players were ejected after a review. Genuinely not sure what Adams did wrong there... even Plumlee was unlucky to get bounced and he started the whole thing by throwing a stray elbow at Steve-o’s throat. Sometimes the refs just get carried away, you know.
Having said that, Steven Adams may have laughed it off while the cameras were rolling but a cheeky fancam suggests this may have been a rare instance of him being genuinely annoyed...
As a rookie, Tips quickly established a reputation for getting other guys ejected. He explains that phenomenon a bit in the NBA Aus/NZ profile video linked later in the article as being what happens when a bloke’s rookie status gets held against him. Veteran players took it personally when he didn’t budge and kept it stonefaced. As he’s gotten older, his reputation has become known and guys don’t mess with him in the same way. Except for Mason Plumlee. Check out this munter trying to vindicate his dirty elbow shot as just matching the physicality...
Old mate Kevin Durant had a much more reasonable response when asked after the game about all the brouhaha: “My opinion on that does not matter”. Be that as it may, KD is a former teammate of Adams and they appeared to have a giggle about it while the review was in process. He might not be admitting it but it would appear he had more sympathy for his one-time OKC pal there. In case you’re wondering, Steven Adams has had 36 technical fouls in his career and has fouled out on 16 occasions (only twice since he left OKC though), and has two flagrant fouls to his name... but this was the first time he has ever been ejected from an NBA game.
Some Offensive Rebounds
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