The Quotable Steven Adams – 2015/16 Edition
The rise of Steven Adams was one of the stories of the NBA Playoffs, not only in New Zealand but across the basketball-watching world. Here was this young kiwi centre, out there looking like a pirate, dominating some of the game’s finest players and helping his Oklahoma City Thunder team on a fascinating playoff run – one which fell agonisingly short of the highest stage as they were beaten in seven games by the eventual champion Golden State Warriors.
But amidst the punishing dunks, the resilient toughness, the gravitational rebounds and the multiple kicks to the testicles… there was also the off-court personality of Kiwi Steve that was allowed to flourish on the bigger stage. The side of him that the local beat media around OKC has known since he emerged from next to nowhere as an international rookie three years ago. On the court he’s a no nonsense, no prisoners, defensive rock with a habit of playing through pain and winding up opponents. Off of it he’s honest, humble and endearingly casual. Plus genuinely hilarious. What's more is that if you happen to be a native of Aotearoa, he sounds just like us, mate!
Here are the best Steven Adams quotes of the 2015-16 season, beginning right at the beginning, when he returned to Oklahoma looking somewhat hairier than he had when he left…
“I’m keeping the long hair. I’m keeping everything, I’m just letting myself go.”
– A statement of intent at Thunder Media Day, 2015.
“This was a phase I went through when I was 13 and can’t take it back. It’s alright though.”
– As for the gold tooth…
"Well played. Top form. Good from him."
– Adams on Russ’ Halloween costume, where he turned up at the team part dressed as… Steven Adams.
“I wanted to punch myself in the face”
– Having missed four layups in a blowout win over the Grizzlies.
“I’d better pull this off or I’m sitting down”
– The thought process as he bravely went for a cross-over dribble on DeMarcus Cousins.
"Yeah, I enjoyed it a bit too much, honestly. I need to simmer down."
– Another game against the Grizzlies, this time Steve pulled off a wicked no-look pass to Andre Roberson. He loved it.
“I was telling these guys here that if GQ wants to do a photo shoot, I’ve got it all planned out. I have everything from the fireplace, the bearskin rug, everything.”
“It just gives me a bigger market to work with, ’cause the older ladies come my way, too, mate.”
– When you look as distinctive as that, there are benefits – as we found out in a GQ magazine feature.
“We work so hard on defence, all we do really in practice. To then get blown out like that, it’s unbelievable, bro. It sucks.”
– Losing hurts. Especially when you had a big lead against the Cleveland Cavaliers and blew it.
“We’re struggling on maintaining that standard that we come out on. ‘Cause we come out real hot and it’s quite hard to maintain that level”
– After the All Star break, the Thunder’s apparent fourth quarter struggles became a major feature.
“Yeah just a normal one, mate, I’m fine now. Overreacted. Wasn’t even sore, honestly. Faked it. She’ll be right, just taking it day by day, see how it feels tomorrow.”
– A rolled ankle in a March game against the Warriors, nothing to worry about.
“They said business casual, mate!”
– Kevin Durant had a fancy charity event. Channelling his inner Bret from Flight of the Conchords, Kiwi Steve turned up in an animal sweater.
"That's why they drafted me, boy!"
– Overheard at shootaround, after draining a step back jumper. From a player who to that time had never attempted such a shot in his NBA career.
“I overreacted. I’m a diva.”
– Another injury to play down and play through, this time a hyperextended elbow against the Rockets.
“Maybe that’s why he misses free throws, mate. Maybe? Like, ‘cause they go… I find it hard to shoot, like, really grippy stuff. It’ll just stick to your hands. And I suck already. So like… you know what I mean? I might try it out.”
– See, there was this bit of a drama in late-March when it was revealed that Dwight Howard of the Houston Rockets had been using mild adhesives on his hand, a product called ‘Stickum’. It wasn’t strictly illegal but it was slightly shady. Steve saw a potential side effect that DH12 may have overlooked.
"DeAndre’s harder because he’s sharper. He’s not as muscly as Dwight. So Dwight’s got cushion. DeAndre’s elbows hurt, bro. Like, really. They’re sharp, bro. They hurt a lot. So that’s what’s the tough thing, knowing you could be hit anywhere. Manhood could be gone like that, man, risking everything to do this one thing. That’s what goes through your mind every time."
– G’day Steve, tell us the difference between Dwight Howard and DeAndre Jordan.
“Salutations.”
– A commons Kiwi Steve greeting at media scrums.
“Just me and my loser mates, we say it. We’re losers, that’s why.”
– Explaining the prevalence of the above quote.
“I don’t think it the dunks, bro, I think it’s his reaction after bro. that’s what really gets us pumped, bro. Nuts. It’s awesome, we’re like: That’s cool.”
– Speaking on the Thunder players’ reaction to Russ dunks.
“Honestly, I just like caught the ball and that’s it.”
– After a 14 point performance vs Utah, following on from some recent form, especially on offence.
“Since he’s so tall, he like collapses on you so it’s really hard. You’re in a constant squat the whole time. Tell you what, mate: leg days. Leg days, mate.”
– Playing against the Spurs’ enormous unit Boban Marjanovic is no simple matter. Or, “Big Bobby”, as Steve calls him.
“Probably back in high school. That’s a lie, but you guys don’t know that.”
– After an Adams tip-in from a missed Westbrook shot proved the difference late on against the Clippers in April, the lad Adams was asked if he’d ever had a game winner before.
“You’re not a part of our family! You always take the spotlight! Let us be cool for once!”
– In an interview celebrating the Stache Bros of Steven Adams and Enes Kanter, in strolls Kevin Durant with a fake moustache.
Enes: “So every time I played against Oklahoma city I hated it, coz there was always like… they got him and Perkins, like two big, really big, guys down low and I always hated to play against them because he’d always have tricks so I was like trying to go help and he was pulling my arm and…”
Steve: “You weren’t trying to help, let’s be honest.”
– More from that same interview.
"Yeah, he's a big boy, mate. See his head? Such a big head. It's awesome. And they mock me for having a big head."
– OKC met Dallas in the first round of the playoffs. Mavericks’ opponent Zaza Pachulia the target here.
“I can’t understand him mate. He can’t understand me. It’s redundant really, his trash talk.”
– And this time, the Mavs’ chirpy Tunisian centre Salah Mejri.
“Just gotta let it go bro. Gotta treat it like an ex-girlfriend.”
– A would-be game-winner was ruled out after Steve missed the buzzer by a fraction of a second in game two against the Mavs, opening round of the playoffs. But no use in dwelling on that.
“Swingin’ at the legs. He’s good man, he’s good.”
– Steve when asked about Enes Kanter’s big night in game four of the Mavs series.
“Check it out, it’s gonna give me some good street cred. Actually looks kind of badass.”
– Yet another injury, yet another casual shrug. This time it was a “brutal” scratch across his shoulder.
"It smells like someone farted in your face all the time but you get used to it."
– Say, yes, he is from Rotorua. How could you tell?
“Oh just I don’t know if you’ve trapped an animal. You guys probably haven’t but I have. It’s not a fun thing, they come out wild and attack you and do stuff that they don’t usually do.”
– Steven Adams referred to the Mavericks as likely to have an “animal in the corner” mentality as they faced elimination vs OKC. Asked to explain that turn of phrase, he did so.
“Haha, umm… I had a cow in a corner. Because you know there usually scared of you, and you know, pampered and stuff, so yeah this one kinda just ran me over. And when I say cow I’m not giving it a full… it was a little bull. Like a little tiny one. I was huge. I’m trying to make myself sound strong but I was actually scared. He actually hit me and I cried.”
– Which led to his best “animal in the corner” story.
"I'll try anything but the pig testicles in Taiwan were a little much. Eh, it wasn't half bad. There was this one dish I had there, the translations is, 'The Monk Jumps over the Fence.' It's a fish dish with all these spices. It was beautiful man, it was poetry. It had a whole story."
– Quote says it all, really.
“And he’s a nice guy. That was my biggest mistake as a rookie, I was like hitting him all the time and he was getting in trouble. And then he came over and talked to me a bit: “Hey bro, how are you?” and I was like, oh, what a nice guy. He just dropped 20 from there on.”
– After seeing off the Mavericks, the Thunder met the San Antonio Spurs in the second round. The same team that eliminated them in the conference finals in Adams’ rookie season. So Steve had a story to tell about Tim Duncan.
“Oh yes. Thanks for the reminder mate. Just piling it on, thanks mate. Cheers. Confidence booster right there.”
– Game one against the Spurs went comprehensively against the Thunder. Having copped a couple big losses in San Antonio back in that 2014 series, that’s something the Thunder have experience of (and bouncing back from), though not Mr Adams, who needed a few reminders before it came flooding back.
“Might be the coal colour. There’s something aesthetically negative about this place.”
– Hey, Stevie. What’s so difficult about playing in San Antonio?
“Those are quite painful, actually.”
– OKC roared back to take game two with Adams playing a starring role, 12 points and 17 rebounds. A few roaring offensive plays in there too, like one commanding dunk in particular. Although don’t try it at home, kids.
"We came out and actually tried. That's pretty much it. We actually tried this time."
– But that game wasn’t without controversy. A missed call on an inbounds pass and Adams had to play some three-vs-one defence, managing somehow to close out a couple shots, falling into the crowd as he did (where he was held back by a fan). Still, the entire performance was leagues beyond game one, so… what was the difference?
“Nah no no, might give her a nod, say hello. Then don’t touch me.”
– About the fan that tried to hold him back, though…
“They’re just high calibre.”
– OKC lost the third game but won the next two, putting them on the brink of progressing. Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant were immense, Steve summed it all up.
“Couldn't hear a thing, man. Couldn't hear myself think or nothing. Just constant screaming. It was definitely the loudest. Especially after those big plays from those two. I almost fainted, bro.”
– That San Antonio crowd does get loud.
“I don't even care really. I guess the right answer is Russ should have got it. Or KD. Anyone on our team. There you go.”
– During the Spurs series, Steph Curry was confirmed as unanimous MVP. Steve was having none of it.
“No science behind it really, just coming in playing, just swinging. Swinging… swinging at the knees!”
– A little more on Russ after his game five heroics. Bit of a favourite phrase, that one.
“I’ve taken a couple of hot falcon balls to the hip.”
– But, ah, some of Westbrook’s passing can be slightly tough to deal with now and then, as brilliant as he is.
“… nothing…?”
– The press wanted to know what the Thunder were doing to finally make Tim Duncan look his age, which nobody else has ever done.
“Of course cake is not bread. Is this why Americans are fat? You confuse cake with bread?”
– Not every press question was as relevant as that last one.
“FIRST TRY!”
– That’s Steve getting a bit too exuberant after hitting a three pointer in his regular shoot-around duel with Enes Kanter. Missed three in a row, hits the fourth and yells this.
“I know when it’s coming on because I’ll be looking at you and then your face will like disappear so that’s when I know I’m gonna get one and then I get nauseous, start throwing up, thumping headache – it feels like old mate with a sledgehammer is just pounding at the back of my right eye.”
– OKC knocked those Spurs out with a win in game six. Adams had a 15p & 11r game to top off a magnificent breakout series… and he did it this time despite a pre-game migraine that had him vomiting and on an IV. Apparently the migraines are semi-regular for him. What a hero.
“Man, don't think I'm a hero or anything. It's just modern medicine, mate.”
– Sorry, not a hero. Just a regular bloke throwing down dunks in the NBA.
“If I eat a food and throw it up, I'm off that food for life. It sucks. I've actually had some favourite foods that I no longer like because of it.”
– More on those bloody migraines.
“I’ll probably have to give it some thought but I’m pretty happy with what I did. Mainly on the defensive end but I was quite happy with how I performed.”
– Mate, you and the rest of New Zealand – not to mention the blessed folk of Oklahoma.
“Pretty much as soon as he came in. I just told him that I’m eating his food, so I told the guys to order double.”
– Stache Bro Enes Kanter is Muslim and keeps a halal diet. Before long, the rest of the team were in on that diet too, digging into all manner of Turkish and Middle Eastern dishes. How did it all start? Because of the appetite of a certain kiwi big man. And why? “Because it’s awesome.”
“Nah. I mean, I made fun of him when we won the cricket a while back but that was like in my first year. Last year we got kicked so I didn’t talk to him from them on. We got destroyed.”
– The Thunder progressed to meet defending champs Golden State in the Western Conference finals, meaning a Kiwi vs Aussie duel down low between Adams and Andrew Bogut. No sledging, though.
"Just for looks, mate. Try to get me some street cred."
– That Warriors series, as most people no doubt recall, was something of a bruiser for Steve. His hand was hurt, he took a bunch of stray limbs (probably gave more than a few too) and at one stage in the opener he was playing with a tissue up his snout to stem a nosebleed.
"Honestly mate, no idea. Yeah, no idea. That could have went absolutely tragic."
– On attacking the hoop late on in game one.
"I'm just proud of the discipline. Usually I get frustrated, try to change things up and then I miss pretty much all of them. But I made a little adjustment, just found it and stuck to it."
– Despite being a career 55% free throw shooter, Adams shot them at 63% across the 2015-16 playoffs – 66.7% in the Warriors series.
“I don’t envy guards. They’re quick little monkeys those guys.”
– Speaking live on telly about the difficulties of guarding Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, this little ditty didn’t quite translate into the American parlance, earning a quick apology and more than a few think pieces.
“Young? How old are they? They’ve got grey hairs.”
– A media member asked Steven Adams about Billy Donovan and Steve Kerr going head to head as relative ‘young coaches’. He wanted some clarification (each was 50 years old at the time).
"Just got to maintain humility, mate. It's a series. I mean, we came away with a win but we've just got to be ready. We can't be satisfied. That's all it is, mate."
– Despite coming up against the defending champs after a record breaking 73-win season, the Thunder took the victory in the first game. The first of many.
“They were just the aggressors tonight, man. They came out more aggressive than us, obviously that led to them getting more boards and all that sort of stuff.”
– But the Dubs responded with a game two win in turn to level things back up.
“One thing that’s good is I don’t lose it if some old mate goes bang! and hits me in the face. It’s with me the whole time – that’s what’s good about it. You can’t really notice it because I need to brush my teeth really.”
– You know that gold tooth of his? Here’s another story.
“Yeah I mean I think he’s reached… he’s peaked with annoyingness.”
– Defending on Draymond Green is not an easy task. This particular take was one Adams soon regretted as he was definitely proved wrong in the following contests.
“It’s happened before. Pretty accurate, that guy.”
– Like, for example, the stray knee that Steve took to the nuts in the second game. Or the possibly not so stray kick he received in the same area in #3. Big controversy.
“No I didn’t. I was seriously considering it though. Second time’s a coincidence, third time’s a trend. If it happens a third time, bro, definitely all that.”
– Draymond Green escaped suspension, but Steven Adams didn’t get to escape being asked the difficult questions about possible protective gear for the “nether regions”.
“You see it all the time, mate. It gets monotonous.”
– And yet OKC were able to shock the defending champs with a couple of wins to put them on the brink of the NBA Finals. 3-1 up, one more to go. Adams played two of his finest ever performances in those ones but, naturally, Durant and Westbrook were the superstars. Though not everyone was as impressed by KD & Russ’ greatness.
“I always go through a process where, like, that hurt and then I try to move to see if it’s really serious. Coz the same happened when I broke my hand, I didn’t actually know, I thought I just needed to get it popped back in, I didn’t know it was broken. So I kind of go through this checklist of like: Okay, that ain’t broken. This ain’t broken. Okay, I’m pretty good.”
– Honestly, some of the injuries that Adams played through could have hospitalised a mortal man. Good thing he knows how to deal with pain.
“Yeah, that’s just weird. I don’t wanna destroy the few brain cells that I have.”
– Pain-dealing skills that include giving himself a peppy slap in the face after rolling his ankle one time. Although apparently that was subconscious.
“Yeah, you just said it right there, mate. It's Game Seven. Just got to come out and perform our best.”
– Ah, but the Warriors don’t win that many games by luck or coincidence. They took game five before tying it all up in OKC thanks to a miraculous effort from Klay Thompson, scoring 41 points. Meaning we were off to a deciding game seven.
“Good from you, mate.”
– A reporter jumped to a conclusion about watching game film. Steve called him on it. Turns out he was right anyway, so he gave him his congrats.
“He can read me a story and I’ll go straight to sleep.”
– Dikembe Mutombo expressed some words of praise towards Adams, who was taken by the legend’s thick, deep voice as much as anything.
“Chewbacca, mate. Coming in all just hair everywhere.”
– Exit interview time, after the Warriors eliminated the Thunder in seven. Say, Steve, after the moustache and long locks this season, how are you gonna look when you turn up again next season?
“Probably off the court, just terrorising citizens.”
– They reckon Steven Adams may be a monster within a couple years. He agrees… with a twist.
“… especially when you don’t get the results you want, it adds extra kick… I shouldn’t say kick. It adds extra, yeah, stuff.”
– Walking the fine line after certain controversies in those playoffs.
“Just flick him a text and see what he’s gonna do.”
– How are you planning on following the Kevin Durant free agency thing?
“By the way, I’m real low on the totem pole. I’m lucky enough to get his number.”
– Brushing shoulders with stardom.
“Well, when you put it like that, what you just said, you should sell that to homemade. Sounds like an infomercial.”
– 22 year old centre on the rise, call in the next 30 minutes and the moustache is free!
“Just been head down working hard, mate. Trying to keep my nose clean.”
– But he hasn’t bought into the hype himself, not at all.
“I will be on earth, somewhere.”
– Breaking: Adams rules out intergalactic off-season training.
“Cheers lads, been a pleasure.”
– Over and out.
“I hope that basketball gains momentum and kids understand that you can actually make a living from it. Not just the N.B.A. You can get a scholarship, a free degree, like no student loan you have to pay off. That’s huge in life. Once they realize that in New Zealand, I hope they get inspired.”
– Chur, Steve.