As Expected, Steven Adams Has Re-Signed With The Houston Rockets
Steven Adams has signed an extension with the Houston Rockets. The Rockets were desperate to get this deal done with both general manager Raphael Stone and also head coach Ime Udoka having made it very clear that this was an offseason priority. They also implied that Adams himself was keen on coming back... but even if he was on the fence, the Rockets still would have had the advantage in free agency. By virtue of holding his Bird Rights, they could have gone above the salary cap to re-sign him... allowing them to raise any outside offer in the event of a bidding war. Turns out it didn’t come to that.
Let us remind ourselves what GM Stone had to say in his exit interview six weeks ago...
“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.”
Stone’s instincts were correct. They worked something out. Plenty of NBA teams (almost all of them, tbh) could use what Steven Adams brings to the barbecue but instead he chose to remain with the Rockets on a three-year, US$39m contract that comes fully guaranteed and slightly front-loaded. Each of those points is interesting but the first fascination here is how quickly they got it done, especially in light of what the Houston Rockets have done since.
The Timing Of The Deal
Steven Adams was on the brink of hitting the open market for the first time in his entire career but, in the end, he decided couldn’t be bothered with it. Whereas many NBA players enjoy centring themselves in these conversations... Adams dodged the wining and dining and simply took the first option. Again, it was always likely that he would re-sign with Houston... but the surprising thing is that he didn’t even wait to see what any other teams had to offer him. They got this contract signed, sealed, and delivered with two weeks still to go before he was allowed to begin negotiating elsewhere.
Now, let’s not be naive here. The free agency window is one thing but everyone understands that agents and team officials are always working behind the scenes. Sometimes officially, sometimes unofficially. Adams would have had a decent idea of where he stood and what interest was out there. Following the same logic, it’s probable that he’d been chatting through the ins and outs of this Houston extension for quite a while. They must have, in order to have had it wrapped up before the NBA Finals even finished.
Clearly, Steve-o is where he wants to be and saw no reason to drag things out. Gives him one less thing to worry about as he heads back to the farm for a few months. However, the real benefit of this swiftness belonged to the Houston Rockets. With this deal sorted, they’re able to move forward with more clarity around another key veteran: Fred VanVleet, who has a $44.9m contract option for next season which they’ve already delayed the deadline over. They’ll probably keep FVV, it’s just a matter of if they keep him on that current deal and risk free agency next year or if they choose to give him a restructured extension. They’ve got until the end of the month to make a decision there.
One of the problems about having nailed so many great draft selections in a short space of time (Jalen Green, Jabari Smith, Tari Eason, Amen Thompson, Cam Whitmore, and Reed Sheppard were all their own selections between 2021 to 2024 while they traded for Alperen Sengun on draft day so that’s basically the same thing)... is that they all come up for contract extensions at the same time and that wreaks havoc on a team’s salary book. Sengun and Green already signed extensions that’ll kick in for 2025-26. Eason and Smith become eligible for extensions in a few months. Thompson will be due one soon enough and his could be bordering on maximum territory.
That means the Houston Rockets are pretty much guaranteed to be hitting the luxury tax this season with what’ll be one of the highest payrolls in the competition. And that’s before they sort out the long-term futures of Eason, Smith, and Thompson. They can’t keep everyone but they’re in the phase where they’ve just gotten their first playoff scars and from here onwards they expect to be competing for championships. Well, there’s one quick way to go about easing the costs without damaging the roster: package a few sacrificial offerings and trade for a top tier player. Like, oh I dunno, that Kevin Durant guy seems decent...
And there you go. KD’s people had already leaked that there were only three destinations that he was open to being traded to. He didn’t actually have a choice in the matter, the Phoenix Suns could’ve sent him wherever they wanted, but he’s on an expiring deal (a contract given to him by Sean Marks) so teams would need his cooperation to keep him around for anything longer than a one-and-done. Naturally, that affects which teams are willing to negotiate. KD’s shortlist was: Houston Rockets, Miami Heat, and San Antonio Spurs. The Spurs weren’t feeling it and the Minnesota Timberwolves tried to convince him to expand the list but mostly it was down to the Rockets and Heat... and not only did the Rockets get that thing done, they got it done without giving up any of their untouchables.
The Rockets only gave up what they were happy to give up. Jalen Green was their most inconsistent starter (as we saw in the playoffs) and his contract wasn’t looking too flash in the long term. Off you go, son. They also flipped the tenth overall draft pick but they didn’t really have room for another lottery rookie anyway. Plus they kept all the future picks that they’ve acquired over recent years (including Phoenix’s own 2027 first rounder). And while Dillon Brooks was good for them last season, he’s not as good as Kevin Durant who’ll be taking his spot in the starting five. This was a fantastic bit of front office work from Rafael Stone.
It might not have happened had Steven Adams not got his situation sorted bright and early. If he’d waited for free agency then the draft would have already happened... and draft picks are generally more valuable before they’re cashed in, when they still represent wide-open potential. Not to say that they wouldn’t have done the deal without the Adams extension in place, just that his acquiescence made things easier. Thanks to that – and also Phoenix’s lack of leverage – the Rockets were able to keep Alperen Sengun, Amen Thompson, Jabari Smith... and even guys like Cam Whitmore and Reed Sheppard, thus ensuring that the core of a winning team remains intact.
Oh and by the way... since he just signed an extension, Adams is ineligible to be traded until at least Decembe so he was never going to be part of these negotiations because the rules don’t allow it. Actually, his presence might have been a selling point for Kevin Durant. They’re former teammates, of course, and it was while they were playing together that KD won his MVP trophy...
The Financials
We’ve already gotten into some of the team-wide financials with Houston heading for the luxury tax and the FVV situation still unresolved. Here’s a more specific look at what Steven Adams will be getting on this deal...
Good work if you can get it. That’s actually a slight upgrade on the $12.6m he got in each of the previous two seasons on his last contract. The man turns 32 years old in July so this’ll keep him in the National Basketball Association until he’s at least 35, adding to the 11 seasons he’s already spent in the league (12 if you count the year he was out injured).
The most realistic approach that other teams had, if he’d made it to free agency, was the mid-level exception which would have earned him around $15m per year. There must have been some teams ready to reach that high, even in a year where salary cap space seems pretty rare. The new Collective Bargaining Agreement came into effect two years ago and with that came more restrictions on luxury tax spending (to prevent super team hoarding) but also punishments for teams spending under 90% of their salary floor. You can’t overspend and you can’t underspend... so it’s harder to find cap space for free agency. Nevertheless, Adams has a profile that would have been much coveted.
Remember the Bird Rights yarn, meaning that Houston could have (and surely would have) raised any call in free agency. In that situation, Adams would have been demanding at least a few milly more than what he’s settled for. This was a team-friendly extension and not only in overall terms. There’s also the fact that he front-loaded the deal, earning more than $2m more in the first year than in the third year. That’s not heaps but it will help the Rockets as they begin working on that Amen Thompson future extension.
Contributing For A Contender
Steven Adams has never been to the NBA Finals. He made it as far as the Conference Finals with Oklahoma City in 2014 and 2016 but since then has only once gone past the first round. The Houston Rockets weren’t able to jump that hurdle in the season just gone but with such a young and exciting team, playoff runs should be the expectation every year for the foreseeable future. Even if they hadn’t traded for Kevin Durant then that still would have been the case. The rebuild is over. From here on out the plan is to try and win championships.
In other words, there’s no need for Funaki to look for greener pastures. He’s as likely to make the finals with the Rockets as he is anywhere else. The only competitive reason to leave would have been his playing role and, yeah okay, there’s something in that. He’s only a bench player for the Rockets whereas plenty of other franchises would have happily offered him starter’s minutes. Except that Adams probably cares less about the starter/bench dynamic than anyone - as long as he’s got a job to do, he’s going to do it without fuss.
And let’s keep what happened last season in context. While his overall minutes weren’t up to much... gotta remember that he began on a minutes restriction and it was only in the last couple months that the Double Big line-up came into focus. Steven Adams averaged around 11 minutes per game for the first three months of 2024-25. In January and February, that rose to 14mpg. In March and April we’re talking roughly 17mpg. Then in the playoffs it was 22mpg. The Double Big stuff is no longer new, this team understands the defensive adjustments that it requires and will absolutely continue to utilise it (Double Big with KD in the line-up is going to be insane). Nor does Adams have anything to prove after how influential he was during that playoff series. He’s fully fit. He’s fully integrated. What we saw in the last few months of the season is what we should expect moving forward.
That’s a pretty sweet gig. Getting 20-odd minutes per game, starting whenever Sengun is unavailable, having the ability to rest when there’s a wee niggle... nothing wrong with that. He won’t put up the numbers that he would playing 30mpg but that’s more than enough to do some damage. Plus it’ll keep him fresher for the playoffs and we saw last season, having been managed through much of it, how much of a difference that can make. Nothing about this role is going to change because, shortly after the Steven Adams extension and a couple of days before the KD trade happened, confirmation came that head coach Ime Udoka had come to an agreement on a long-term extension of his own. With a happy solution to the VanVleet situation, this could turn out to be a perfect offseason.
Third-Year Reciprocation
Nobody would have blamed Steve-o if he’d waited for free agency to test the waters for outside interest. He could also have demanded more money than he got. Front-loading the contract works out in the team’s favour too, not to mention that he absolutely could have commanded a starting role somewhere else yet has chosen to stick around as the sixth-man instead. We’ve explored why Adams chose what he chose in each of those cases but there’s no doubt that he’s done the Houston Rockets organisation a massive favour with how everything has played out.
Thus they’ve done him a solid in return. Adams could have gotten more money and more minutes somewhere else... but would those other teams have included a fully-guaranteed third year in their offer for a big bloke now in his 30s who recently missed a year and a half of basketball with a serious knee injury? Doubtful. Even before his knee troubles, his previous two extensions were only two-year efforts. When he was traded to the Pelicans in the final year of his massive OKC extension, he promptly signed on for two years and $35m. The Pellies traded him before he began that contract with Steve-o landing in Memphis where he impressed enough in year one to be offered another two-year extension, this time for a combined $25m. The Grizz then flipped him to Houston after the knee issue emerged and now here we are.
Houston understands his physical condition better than anyone. They’re on it every day. When he was traded so cheaply by Memphis, many people assumed he must be damaged goods but from day one the Rockets always said they expected him to make a full recovery. Now he’s made a full recovery and they’ve backed that up even further by giving him a longer deal than most teams would have been comfortable with. Good from them. Everybody benefits.
Gratitude
It’s crazy to think that Steven Adams was traded by Memphis for three second-round draft picks and an injured Victor Oladipo (whom they then waived). Flash forward to the recent playoffs and Tips was as good as ever and now he’s been re-signed by the team poised for contention that was hand-picked by a future Hall of Famer as a preferred destination. Meanwhile, Memphis have changed their entire coaching staff since Adams left and, after trading Desmond Bane, there are only a handful of dudes left from when they went to the second round of the playoffs in Tip’s first season there (Ja Morant, Jaren Jackson, Santi Aldama, John Konchar, and Brandon Clarke... and there’s no guarantee they’re all there on opening day next season).
Professional sports is professional sports and you won’t catch Steven Adams whinging about it. But having been treated as he was by Memphis, you’ve gotta imagine that he felt much more appreciated turning up in Houston where they allowed him to work his way back slowly but surely, never rushing him, keeping him out of back to backs and resting him when he needed it, all while embracing not only his presence on the court (where his offensive rebounding, physicality, and attention to the one-percenters made him an ideal fit for Coach Udoka), but also his off-court leadership and experience. Make a brother feel welcome and respected and it’s going to be a lot easier to convince him to stick around.
Notice the words that were listed as foundational values by Steven Adams on IG after signing his extension:
“Today was a meaningful step forward—built on gratitude, resilience, discipline, teamwork, and trust. This journey hasn’t been one I’ve walked alone. It’s been shaped by the steady guidance of my DPT and mentor, Mike Davis, and grounded in the values passed down from family and friends. Each step required discipline. Every challenge demanded trust in the people around me and in myself. I’m grateful to be back on the floor. Honoured to represent my whānau, my teammates, and my country, New Zealand. Every time I step out there, I carry a piece of everyone who's helped me get here. Thank you for riding with me. The journey continues.”
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