Steven Adams Was Resurgent In The NBA Playoffs, Next Comes Free Agency
It’s pretty wild to think where we are now, compared to 15 months ago when the Memphis Grizzlies traded Steven Adams to Houston. Back then there were fears that Adams might be damaged goods with that ongoing knee injury. After all, Memphis seemed to have flipped him for almost nothing - all they got in return was three second-round draft picks and an injured Victor Oladipo whom they waived a few days later. Reading between the lines, it was almost as though they were trying to dump him off.
Then again, the Memphis Grizzlies might just be stupid. They mishandled his knee injury in the first place and then they bailed on him cheaply before he got fit again. The only saving grace is that they did promptly draft Zach Edey as a Canadian clone of Steven Adams so at least you can’t say they didn’t appreciate what they had. Edey specifically sought out Adams for an extended chat after an early-season Grizzlies vs Rockets game back in October and refers to him as a mentor despite them never actually overlapping as teammates.
The Grizzlies may have fumbled the Funaki bag but the Houston Rockets knew what they were getting and they took their time making sure there were no complications. Adams was given room to complete his recovery after the initial trade. Then, coming into the 2024-25 term, they were extra cautious with an initial minutes restriction. He didn’t play back-to-backs and was rested whenever there were any niggles. Steve-o definitely ramped up as the campaign progressed, especially over the last few months as the Double Big strategy came into prominence, but nothing was ever rushed. The entire regular season was spent with one mission in mind: to put Steven Adams in the best position to perform in the playoffs.
And that he certainly did.
Funaki In The Playoffs
For some reason, there’s been this lingering stereotype throughout his career that Steven Adams doesn’t bring his best stuff to the playoffs. To be fair, that probably had more to do with people’s ideas about big men in the three-point age rather than Adams specifically, although it’s not a lie to say he’d cop so much damage through the 82-game regular season that he was always carrying knocks by the end of it. That stereotype might have contained some truth during his OKC days when he was playing 30+ minutes per night whilst only missing a handful of games all season. But it clearly wasn’t true after a year in Houston where they very delicately protected him from even minor complaints, only playing him in 42 out of 82 games and averaging a mere 14 minutes per game at that.
As for how centres fare in modern basketball, well, the age of the big man has returned so no dramas there. The streak is probably going to end this year but the previous six MVP awards have all gone to players 6’11 or taller (Jokic x3, Antetokounmpo x2, Embiid). Not to mention the mighty Double Big line-up that the Houston Rockets had embraced over the previous few months. Oh look, here’s a whole article about that.
Steven Adams debuted at the tail-end of a booming time for centres (think Duncan, Shaq, Howard, Ming, Garnett, et cetera) which also happened to be the transition into the three-point barrage small ball era. The bulk of his career has been spent at a time when bigs were being told that they needed to have a jump shot in order to survive. A good example is Brook Lopez who went from attempting just 31 three-pointers in his first seven seasons combined to shooting 387 of them in year eight.
But Adams never went in that direction. If anything, he pivoted harder in the other direction, specialising in hard screens, tough rebounds, and boxing out as everyone else forgot these sacred arts. He has developed some serious finesse in his passing game but to date his only made three in the NBA remains a halfcourt buzzer-beating heave. Now the tides of history are swelling in favour of the five-man again and Steven Adams simply continues to keep his head down and do what he’s always done. He just rides the waves, irrespective of the trends, proving that there’s always a place for a dude with his skills.
Back to the playoff yarns, it’s possible that some of the angst also stems from the fact that his teams haven’t actually been that successful in the postseason. The first two times Adams made it (year one and year three of his career), his Thunder teams took it all the way to the Western Conference Finals. Since then he’s won just one playoff series despite almost always qualifying for them. Those Russell Westbrook solo years in OKC really weren’t built for postseason success and injury meant that Adams was only available for that one proper attempt with Memphis. They beat the Timberwolves in round one that season but Steve, if you recall, got benched in that series (which increasingly feels like bad coaching having seen how Taylor Jenkins fizzed out with the Grizzlies). Then he got covid and by the time he was healthy enough to return in the second round series that they lost to Golden State, Ja Morant had gotten hurt meaning that he and Adams never shared the court during those games.
As fate would have it, the 2-seed Houston Rockets were poised to play either the Golden State Warriors or Memphis Grizzlies in the first round in 2025 - depending on which team won their play-in duel. Adams + Sengun would have torn the Grizz to shreds if that had come to pass but it didn’t because the Warriors won 121-116. Memphis then beat Dallas to progress to the first round where they were swept 4-0 by the OKC Thunder.
Meanwhile, Steven Adams got to face the Golden State Warriors in a playoff series for the third time in his career. The first time was the legendary WCF of 2016 when Adams was kicked in the nuts by Draymond and the Thunder blew a 3-1 lead to lose the series. Klay Thompson went wild in game six with 41 points. Kevin Durant then left the Thunder to join the Warriors in the subsequent offseason (after the Dubs themselves had blown a 3-1 lead in the finals against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers). The second time was the aforementioned Memphis Grizzlies crack in 2022. Now he had his Houston Rockets to give it a nudge.
Steve-o vs The Warriors
You already know that it was the Warriors who took the series 4-3, winning a decisive game seven in Houston after the Rockets had fought back from 3-1 down. This was seventh seed beating second seed but there was only a difference of four wins between the two regular season records, Houston winning 52 games and Golden State winning 48. And the Warriors were a completely different beast after they traded for Jimmy Butler in February. Prior to Butler, they were 25-26. With Butler, they went 23-8 the rest of the way for a better record than the Rockets over the same span of time.
Plus the Warriors had just come off a tough play-in game and a hectic end of the regular season hustling to get into the postseason mix... whereas the Rockets were able to cruise to the finish line resting a few players as they did (Adams only played one of their last three games as Houston lost all three). So it was that the Warriors caught them flat in game one, winning in Texas despite Alperen Sengun scoring 26 points with 9 rebounds.
The Rockets were quick to retaliate with a pillar-to-post win in game two thanks to Jalen Green’s 38-point outing, helped even more by an injury to Jimmy Butler when he fell hard contesting a rebound. Butler would miss game three back in San Francisco but the Dubs held firm anyway. Steph Curry was incredible with 36 points. Butler then returned for game four which the Warriors also won in their home arena. This one went all the way to the wire but unfortunately Jimmy Butler was flawless at the free throw line whereas the Rockets missed shots in the clutch. That Golden State experience closed it out when it mattered and the Warriors were up 3-1.
That’s where the series was lost. Houston were slack in game one and lost their home-court advantage. Then they failed to win when GSW were short-handed in game three and failed to make those key plays late in a close game four. You only get so many what-ifs in a playoff series before the horse bolts from the stable.
Nevertheless, Houston won game five 131-116 at home. They led by as many as 31 points in that game with Steve Kerr benching his starters in the third quarter. That was followed by a spectacular game six performance on the road in which Steven Adams, who’d been great off the bench in every game, delivered his finest day in that red jersey with 17 points, 5 rebounds, 3 blocks, and a steal in 31 minutes. Alas, game seven proved the occasion when Steve Kerr finally found a response to the Adams/Sengun combo and as a result the Rockets were forced to rely on more structured halfcourt offence in the face of Buddy Hield’s three-point onslaught. It didn’t work. The Warriors won 103-89 to advance to the second round. Such is life.
By the way, this was the fifth time in the past eleven seasons that the Houston Rockets have been eliminated by the Golden State Warriors... and they didn’t even make the playoffs in four of those years.
Bummer of a way for the season to end, especially since it felt like the Rockets were very capable of flipping that result around. They didn’t necessarily lose to the more talented team but they certainly lost to the smarter, more experienced team. Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Jimmy Butler... those hombres have been there and done that many times before whereas the Rockets had the third youngest squad in the playoffs.
That squad still included a veteran like Adams. It still included a past champion in Fred VanVleet. Don’t forget Dillon Brooks either. But, at the same time, their two top scorers through the season were Jalen Green and Alperen Sengun – both 22 years of age. Amen Thompson was fourth, also aged 22, and Jabari Smith and Tari Eason were sixth and seventh (21yo and 23yo respectively). Every one of those guys was making their debut postseason appearance. Gotta cut them some slack for that. Yes, the Rockets fluffed too many clutch moments (especially in game four)... but the only way to learn about those things is to live through them.
Which is where we get to Steven Adams and his impact, because this chieftain has already paid his dues in the playoffs. He knows what it takes. He spent all season making sure he was in the best possible condition for this stage and when his turn came around he was magnificent, resplendent, triumphant.
Steven Adams had a positive plus/minus in every game until the last one. He was the only player in the entire series to do that – even in the games that Houston lost. On the whole, his plus/minus worked out at +44 (even after it took a bump in game seven) and that was the best mark of any player across the entire first round of the NBA Playoffs who was on a losing team – the only other eliminated player who comes close to that is his buddy Alperen Sengun (+33).
The Adams + Sengun combo played 93 minutes in the series with a +32 on-court rating. Funnily enough, this series ended with the two teams scoring exactly the same amount of points so with that we can easily say that the Rockets were outscored by 32 points in the non Adams + Sengun minutes. They had an offensive rating of 110.4, a defensive rating of 89.8, and a net rating of +20.6. Adams himself played 155 mins so that means more than half his action came in the Double Big set-up.
There’s an extra level to that line-up because sometimes coach Ime Udoka would also leave Jabari Smith, the usual power forward, out there to make it a Triple Big thing. Adams and JS had a +40 plus/minus in 99 minutes together. With all three of them together, they were +31 in 55 minutes. That combo was used to some extent in all seven games and it supplied an offensive rating of 111.0, defensive rating of 77.7, and net rating of 33.3.
Jabari Smith only had a -9 plus/minus overall so clearly he wasn’t nearly as effective without his big bros... Coach Udoka had already embraced the Double Bigs prior to the playoffs and as the series drew on he leant more and more on that combo (and Adams in general) – leading to Adams playing 31 minutes in game six, which was five mins more than he played in any regular season game. Perhaps the next step is to go Triple Big more often... assuming that Adams is still around next year (we’ll get to that in due course).
As for the per 100 possession stuff, Steven Adams brought a 115.4 offensive rating and 101.4 defensive rating to the court in his 155 mins. Both of those were the best numbers in the squad.
Those numbers paint an undeniable picture of Steven Adams Superiority. It’d be a stretch to call him Houston’s best player during this series since they spent more time with him on the bench than on the floor. He was a substitute after all. But he was surely their most impactful fella. Yet while those numbers are nice, the full experience is never felt in the stats with Old Mate. This story is told in the ‘how’ as much as the ‘what’.
Specifically against Golden State, they like to play with Draymond Green at the five for that undersized/overskilled balance... but Green can’t hang with Adams in the paint consistently (not without racking up the fouls) so rookie Quinten Post found his role boosted significantly with 17 minutes per game. Post then dipped back to less than five mins per game in the second round Minnesota series. The presence of Adams forced GSW away from what they wanted to do and it allowed the Rockets to bully them. They loaded up on size and strength and they absolutely bossed the rebounds. We know what that’s like with Adams. He bails out everyone around him by scooping up their missed shots and letting them have another crack. He creates separation through his hard screens. He boxes out for others. Sweet as.
There was something else at play here though. Once upon a time, Steven Adams wrote in his book about how he once celebrated to see that his blocks had gone. Contesting shots is one thing but repelling them altogether is even better. Hard to argue with the logic. However, he had multiple games with multiple blocks against the Warriors. It’s almost like he broke it down to build it back up again... Houston were dominating so much physically that Adams had the leeway to get more aggressive. Or perhaps it was a coaching directive. Whatever the story, this was a new aspect to his defensive game that hammered home his prowess even more with every swatted shot.
But the Warriors still had Steph Curry, right? Legendary shooter on the outside, famous for his off-ball movement as well. Swooping and swerving and getting up impossible shots. Yeah they did... and Curry had some spectacular moments. As usual, he was the best player in a series he was involved in (and it’s telling that he was injured for most of the second round defeat vs Minnesota). Yet the funky thing there is that Steven Adams was closing out on jump shooters too and when he was the primary defender against field goal attempts from 15 feet or further... the Warriors only shot 14/26 at 38.9%. That’s a higher-than-average number but not by as much as you might have anticipated. Certainly not by enough that they could isolate and target Adams. Reel it back to the absolute carnage he was reaping in the paint and it still works out massively in his favour.
It got to the stage where Steve Kerr was calling for deliberate fouls against Adams to try and get him off the floor. We saw that in game four and it worked, with Adams taking a seat to avoid his poor free throw shooting from being exploited (Udoka subbed him back in as soon as the clock ticked under two minutes, when the hacking strategy no longer applies). But it became a repeated tactic in game six. There the Warriors sent Adams to the line for 16 free throw attempts... and you know what? He made nine of them and on two other occasions Sengun grabbed the offensive rebound and scored. That means they got 13 points from eight possessions, ironically making the Hack-An-Adams strategy one of Houston’s most efficient scoring methods. Credit to Udoka for letting him play through it – in coach’s words, he never even considered subbing him out because the defence was so stifling that even without the putbacks that line-up was still bossing it.
With that all said, the question might be asked: Did Houston make enough use of Steven Adams in this series? But that’s a dangerous thought process. Remember that Alperen Sengun was also awesome throughout these games playing mostly in the same position. They could have tried starting with the Double Bigs but then you risk weakening your bench too much – and that lack of playoff-tested depth was already a problem. As soon as Udoka saw how effective Adams in these matchups, he embraced it.
Funaki is never going to make a fuss. He’ll accept his role and do it to the best of his ability. That’s exactly what happened... and the Rockets would have won this series if they’d only had a reliable shooting guard (Jalen Green’s scoring by game: 7, 38, 9, 8, 11, 12, 8... with 37.2/39.5/66.7 shooting splits). Or a sixth-man with scoring ability. Or just more consistency from the young lads. It’s a buzzy one from the Adams perspective because he’s 31 years old and wants to win a championship pronto, but this Rockets team is only at the beginning of their journey.
So what happened in game seven? This was the only game where Adams had a negative impact and that wasn’t a coincidence. For the first time, the Warriors found a response that worked. There was hardly any Quinten Post, he only got three minutes. There were increased flashes of Jonathan Kuminga and Kevon Looney off the bench but mostly they stuck with Draymond at the five and sought to take advantage of the 2-3 defensive zone that the Rockets love whilst in Double Big mode. The risk of that set-up, of any zone set-up, is that you can get caught out by catch-and-shoot guys when defenders are focussing on space rather than opponents. It’s killer stuff down low but on the edges you can usually find open shots. That’s where Buddy Hield and his nine three pointers (33 points overall) entered the equation... with a bit of Steph Curry in there too, naturally.
It’s pretty much that simple. This may not have been something they could rely on for seven full games but in a one-off decider, with the shots dropping, it worked wonders. Houston were forced to chase the game after falling behind early. They also weren’t getting enough defensive stops to launch their offence which in turn put pressure on their half-court offence to deliver points and that’s been a weakness all season. It just didn’t happen for them. The Warriors were too good. We know how it ended.
Steven Adams in the Playoffs
2013-14 | OKC Thunder | Western Conference Finals
2014-15 | OKC Thunder | N/A
2015-16 | OKC Thunder | Western Conference Finals
2016-17 | OKC Thunder | First Round
2017-18 | OKC Thunder | First Round
2018-19 | OKC Thunder | First Round
2019-20 | OKC Thunder | First Round
2020-21 | NO Pelicans | N/A
2021-22| Memphis Grizzlies | Conference Semis
2022-23 | Memphis Grizzlies | First Round (Injured)
2023-24 | Houston Rockets | N/A (Injured)
2024-25 | Houston Rockets | First Round
What’s Next For The Big Fella?
The playoffs didn’t go the way that he’d have wanted with yet another first round exit but taken in its full context this was a triumph for Steven Adams. He had people calling him washed up not so long ago, doubting that he’d ever return from that extended knee injury. Not only did he return but he returned as good as ever. He was undeniably great in that Warriors series with his playing style, his leadership, his winning mentality, and all of those good things making him a perfect fit for Ime Udoka and the Houston Rockets. In the space of these seven games, his reputation was completely restored.
And with that he now enters free agency for the first time in his career. Adams has signed four NBA contracts: his rookie deal with OKC, his massive extension with OKC, a two-year boost when he was traded to New Orleans, then another two-year boost when he was traded to Memphis. Every other time he hit the final year of a contract, he signed a new one on top of that. But now, at the age of 31 and having reclaimed his crown as the NBA’s greatest offensive rebounder, he’s about to do the free agent thing.
This is what Rockets general manager Rafael Stone had to say about Steve-o’s free agency...
“I think Steven was the player – and person – that we thought we were trading for. He’s a really important part of the group, and of the continuity and value I talked about earlier. It’s a two-way street so he has to want to be here. Every indication we have is that he does. If he wants to be here, and we want him back, and both those things are true — which I know is true from our perspective — then I’m sure we’ll work something out.”
Looking at the wider team situation, there’s not a lot of wiggle room. Houston drafted a big chunk of their team and some of those are still rookie scale contracts but Alperen Sengun and Jalen Green both signed huge extensions that kick in next season. They’ve got a fine selection of future picks including #10 in this year’s draft which will help for cheap replacements and/or trade fodder. As for free agents, the two that matter are Fred VanVleet with a team option for $44.9m and Steven Adams as an unrestricted.
FVV’s option would take them over the luxury tax plus they’d have to negotiate again next season. Expiring contracts are always good for trades but all indications are that the Rockets and VanVleet both want to keep this thing going. The alternative path would be to decline the option and re-sign him on a multi-year deal that pays him less in 2025-26 but more down the line. The deadline on that option has been pushed back to give them more time to figure out what it should look like.
It’s a handy thing that Coach Udoka has said he wants to keep this team together because they barely have any cap space. That’ll restrict their business in addressing the shortcomings that were exposed in the playoffs... but it won’t matter as far as Steven Adams goes. That’s because the Rockets have his full Bird Rights. This salary stuff gets complicated so suffice to say they’re allowed to go over the cap to re-sign him, hence they can basically offer whatever they want. Very few other teams will have the financial flexibility to rival what the Rockets can offer.
Adams is a loyal bloke who no doubt appreciates the way this team nursed him back from his knee troubles (especially after how his previous team botched it). GM Stone is on the record saying he wants to keep Tips. It would certainly be in character for Steve-o to want to stay. But there are plenty of other teams that could use what Adams has to offer and if the bloke himself feels like he’s got that itch to be a starter again then he’ll have to leave in order to do so. The short odds would be on him staying but don’t count your chickens just yet. We shall see what happens.
Houston Chronicle: “After Game 1 in Houston, Warriors forward Jimmy Butler was heard in the locker room referring to Adams as a “Strong motherf-----. Adams’ offensive rebounding percentage (14.6) and net rating (14.1) were the best in the series among rotation players from either team who averaged at least 8 minutes per game, and he had the best plus-minus ratio of any player on the Rockets during the series.”
The Niche Cache is just out here trying to do our bit for kiwi sport so if you appreciate the efforts then head on over to Patreon, Substack, or Buy Me A Coffee to support what we do
Also helps to whack an ad, share the articles around, and let all your mates know about us too