In New Zealand, it’s a common thing to dwell on how well the big fella Kiwi Steve compares to his NBA comrades. It’s pretty typical NZ, really – a small country taking extra pride in one of their own succeeding on a global scale. But aside from all the barroom chat and the twitter debates, how do you actually quantify that kinda thing? Well if you read the papers then it’s all about how much money he gets paid in his next contract.

That’s silly though, lots goes into how much a dude earns in the NBA and not all of it is to do with talent. For example, the salary cap shooting through the roof means that everyone is getting paid. Matt Dellavedova, the flippin’ hobbit, is on a $38m deal. Way more interesting is how the basketball dailies rate him for what he does in the 48 minutes of games. A bunch of them are coming out with their preseason player ranks now and while these things are hugely subjective, it sure beats another dumb think-piece on how The Be-Stached One is soon to be a hunnid-million dollar man.

BLEACHER REPORT

Adams Rank – 82

“It's easy to assume Steven Adams' greatest skill is getting under an opponent's skin and forcing him into careless mistakes (or getting tossed from a contest). But that's not fair to his developing game, since Adams' overall defensive efforts and terrific screen-setting aided the Oklahoma City Thunder rather significantly. Now, in the wake of Kevin Durant's departure, we get to see if the offensive growth he displayed in the playoffs is sustainable in a larger role.”

Three Up: Otto Porter, WAS (81), Zach Randolph, MEM (80), Joe Johnson, UTA (79)

Three Down: Kristaps Porzingis, NYK (83), Evan Turner, POR (84), J.J. Redick, LAC (85)

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED

Adams Rank – 40

“Look past the mustache appreciation and testicle humor and remember this simple fact: Steven Adams is one of the most promising young centers in the league. Central to Adams’s emergence as a likely max rookie extension recipient is his two-way efficiency. On offense, he rolls hard, cuts hard, hits the glass hard and dunks hard, rarely straying outside those parameters. On defense, he’s more or less a prototypical modern center: he’s long enough to be a backline defender, tough enough to hold down the paint, and agile enough to step out to defend pick-and-rolls. The trickiest part in gauging expectations for Adams, who rose to the occasion during Oklahoma City’s run to the Western Conference finals, is remembering how many moving pieces will be around him. Last season, he benefited from the defensive length of Serge Ibaka and Kevin Durant, his frontcourt partners, and from an offensive system that kept things simple for him. This year, he will find himself covering up defensively for the likes of Ersan Ilyasova and Enes Kanter, while also trying to do more offensively with far less surrounding help. Those are really big asks, on both sides of the ball. But, as Draymond Green found out, Adams isn’t one to back down from a challenge. (Last year: Not ranked)”

Three Up: Khris Middleton, MIL (39), Brook Lopez, BKN (38), Chris Bosh, MIA (37)

Three Down: Pau Gasol, SAS (41), Serge Ibaka, ORL (42), Nic Batum, CHA (43)

BBALL BREAKDOWN

Adams Rank – 46

“The third year player’s numbers were not eye popping in the regular season, posting 8.0 points, 6.7 rebounds and, 1.1 blocks in 25.2 minutes per game. He was a part of the league’s best starting five in net rating, but that will of course become a thing of the past now that Kevin Durant has bolted for the Bay. It was the postseason where he made his mark, averaging 10.1 points, 9.5 rebounds and 0.8 blocks in 30.7 minutes per game. His minutes were more significant in the Spurs series, as he saw less time in the Warriors series when the Thunder went small against the former Champions.

Whilst the Thunder are an offensive juggernaut who only regress slightly with Adams on the bench, it’s defensively where he has made a significant impact. The Thunder post a defensive rating of 102.0 with the Kiwi on the floor, which would be good for second in the NBA. When Adams sits though, the defense leaks 109.5 points per 100 possessions, which would be 23rd in the NBA. This is a big reason the Thunder likely accepted that they could trade Serge Ibaka knowing their defense no longer so heavily relied on their star power forward. Ibaka’s impact has also regressed since head coach Billy Donovan’s arrival.

Adams strengths defensively is that he is so brilliantly versatile for a big man. When he came into the league Adams was easily exposed in the pick and roll, but he learned how to hedge and defend exceptionally well through the guidance of former teammate Kendrick Perkins. He also has the superb ability to defend smalls capably on the perimeter, highlighted by two superb blocks of Steph Curry in the Western Conference Finals. Curry’s shot was blocked once from the perimeter in the entire regular season.

The Thunder’s franchise center has also worked to develop offensive polish in his game, with increasingly good touch around the rim. He’s an incredible roll man and his chemistry with Russell Westbrook in the pick and roll is a thing of beauty.

The scariest part of Adams’ game? How truly raw it is. His ceiling is impossible to predict, the New Zealander has just turned 23 and has a lot more improvement within him. He’s likely signing a max extension next summer, and he is going to be worth every single penny.”

Three Up: Jae Crowder, BOS (45), Serge Ibaka, ORL (44), Andrew Wiggins, MIN (43)

Three Down: J.J. Redick, LAC (47), C.J. McCollum, POR (48), Danilo Gallinari, DEN (49)

TODAY’S FASTBREAK

Adams Rank – 52

“After a tremendous postseason, Steven Adams was “discovered” by the casual NBA fan, but his performance was the culmination of three years of player development. It was a not a meteoric rise, it was a steady one. And it was one which matured at the perfect time…

If we’re being honest here, and we are, to say Adams has limited range would be a hyperbolic understatement. In his three-year career he has scored 24 points further than 10 feet from the basket, according to Basketball-Reference’s shot finder. His 55.1 free-throw percentage doesn’t bode well for him developing in that area, either. He is decent as the roll man in the pick-and-roll — he scored 1.12 points per play, good enough to place him in the 76.7 percentile. But his underwhelming 166 total points on them accounted for more than a quarter of his offense. He only notched 39 on post-ups. He was, however, tied for 10th in the league on points scored off cuts, with 232 points, and had another 112 on putbacks.

All of that confirms the obvious from watching him. He’s not a guy who is going to score a lot of points with the offense going to him. Rather, he’s at his best when he’s opportunistically creating by cutting to basket or stabbing home offensive rebounds. To climb to the next level, he’ll need to develop more of post game, and at least a semblance of a jump shot.

While Adams’ offensive repertoire is limited, his offense is not why he’s ranked this high. He is emerging as one of the best defensive big men in the league. His Defensive Real Plus-Minus of +2.77 confirms that, as does the fact opponents shot 5.9 percent worse within six feet of the basket when he was the man protecting the basket. But perhaps the best argument for Adams’ defense is that the Thunder’s defensive rating was 99.0 when he was on the court and 107.1 when he sat. Adams has a real shot at All-Defensive team next season, particularly if the Thunder can stay in contention without Durant.”

Three Up: Eric Bledsoe, PHO (51), Greg Monroe, MIL (50), Mike Conley, Mem (49)

Three Down: Jeff Teague, IND (53), Jae Crowder, BOS (54), Danilo Gallinari, DEN (55)

FIVETHIRTYEIGHT

Adams Rank – 54

Three Up: Jrue Holiday, NOP (53), Trevor Ariza, HOU (52), Ben Simmons, PHI (51)

Three Down: Mike Conley, MEM (55), Marc Gasol, MEM (56), Ed Davis, POR (57)

A RANDOM GUY ON REDDIT

Adams Rank – 43

“What a waste of time” – Fellow Random Redditor

Three Up: Reddie Jackson, DET (42), Pau Gasol, SAS (41), Nic Batum, CHA (40)

Three Down: Gordon Hayward, UTA (44), Mike Conley, MEM (45), Danilo Gallinari, DEN (46)

Not all of those excerpts are the full scripts of what was written, so slap the hyperlinks on the site titles and do your full research (plus weird them out when they see they’re getting this massive click-thru from some sit in New Zealand). He didn’t make the Slam Magazine top 50 by the way, which is consistent with the rest of these lists but then they also put injured rookie Ben Simmons at #50 which is strange and they also had Porzingis ranked one spot higher than the mould he was made from: Dirk Nowitzki. That’s just ridiculous, have some respect! This is the same list that had Carmelo Anthony placed at 15 and he accused them of the same thing – no respect.

What’s curious is how, despite being such an idiosyncratic thing, these lists all feature a lot of the same names in and around Steve-o. Fellas such as J.J. Redick, Mike Conley, Dan Gallinari and Pau Gasol all show up multiple times. So as contentious as the top 20s all no doubt are, you fall back a few spots and it all settles into something similar – either that or they’re all reading each other’s stuff. It should be mentioned that most of these are based on last season’s stats and Adams obviously played his best ball (and put up his best numbers) during the playoffs. So that suggests two things. One is that he’s underrated by a lot of these jokers. Two is that maybe he’s overrated by us based on a small sample size. The reality lives somewhere in between the two.

Also, few teams have undergone as much change as the Thunder have and with that Adams is going to be propelled into a role where he needs to be a scorer as well as performing his defensive duties. That’s gonna mean a higher usage rate and it’s gonna mean a higher profile. He’s already poised for that as it is. Sports Illustrated didn’t have him in their top 100 at all last season and here he’s debuted at 40. There’s a significant chance now that he rises even further with 12 more months under his belt.

But yes, we’re definitely jumping to favourable conclusions when people talk about Adams being, like, a top five centre or whatever. He’s a rare breed in that he’s a traditional number five who battles hard and enjoys the niggle but he also isn’t a huge rebounder. He isn’t a guy with that much range to his shooting (yet). He isn’t a player who’s yet had to deal with being a go-to player for his team. There’s no way you can rank him higher than guys like DeMarcus Cousins, Al Horford, DeAndre Jordan, Andre Drummond, Marc Gasol, Rudy Gobert and probably a couple others too. That ain’t to say that he won’t get there. Just that there’s no need to get ahead of ourselves.

By the way, Adams is top ten in accents, top five in personality and top one in moustaches. That’s enough for now.