Media Day Yarns With Steven Adams
Fun Steve is back, baby. The endlessly quotable and hilarious kiwi big man was on full display as he rocked up to his first official team appointment since being traded to the Memphis Grizzlies.
Fun Steve is back, baby. The endlessly quotable and hilarious kiwi big man was on full display as he rocked up to his first official team appointment since being traded to the Memphis Grizzlies.
No max contract free agents this time, was news for two years ago. No blockbuster trade on the way either, that was last season’s business. These days the job calls for a sneakily efficient series of transactions and, would you look at this...
It was back on July 9 that it was first reported that the Breakers had picked up Peyton Siva and Hugo Besson on import contracts for the upcoming NBL season. The pair travelled to Aotearoa some time in the subsequent weeks but it was only on August 22 that Siva was finally announced.
The Grizzlies didn’t trade for Steven Adams because they thought he was an upgrade on Jonas Valanciunas. And the Pelicans didn’t trade for Valanciunas because they were desperate for a bit of what JV had to offer.
It was Tuesday morning in Aotearoa, almost a week after the end of the NBA Finals and a few days before the subsequent NBA Draft with Olympic basketball also catching plenty of attention... and Adrian Wojnarowski had something to say.
What an odd season that was. Steven Adams was traded to New Orleans amidst a global pandemic and even if everything that followed eventually progressed as planned, it was all a little off. Like somebody broke into your house and didn’t take anything but moved all the furniture six inches to the left.
It hasn’t always been this way. This overflow of kiwi ballers in the Aussie league, it used to be a couple of top tier Tall Blacks plying their trade across the Tasman and then a large contingent of Breakers dudes.
It was already a case of very few guarantees when Steven Adams wrapped up his first season with the New Orleans Pelicans. Either your name is Zion Williamson or Brandon Ingram or your place on the Pellies is up in the air right now. Then Stan Van Gundy got the flick.
Well that was bloody awful, wasn’t it? Some nice moments along the home stretch perhaps, that was cool, but the New Zealand Breakers entered this season expecting to be able to challenge for a championship. That was the target.
It’s been five years since Sean Marks took the job as Brooklyn Nets general manager. Five long years as Buddy Guy sings. Five years since the Brooklyn Nets were considered the most hopeless team in the league.
And thus ends Steven Adams’ first season as a New Orleans Pelican. It might yet be his only season as a Pelican, there are never any guarantees come free agency/trade window time... the last couple years have shown that for sure.
Let’s be honest here, the New Orleans Pelicans are probably not going to make the playoffs. Even with the scope being expanded to tenth place with the play-in potential, they’re still not gonna make it.
What exactly is Steven Adams’ role for the Pelicans these days? It’s a simple question to answer: he defends hard, he does the dirty work, he sets the cultural tone. But when his box score numbers seem to swing drastically from one night to the next that answer suddenly doesn’t quite seem sufficient.
People knew that Charlisse was gonna be good. She debuted for the Tall Ferns at 16 years old (and was a part of the bronze medallist Comm Games squad in 2018) and has excelled for age grade national teams. But maybe people didn’t quite think she’d be Pac-12 conference Freshman of the Year good.
The trade deadline came and the trade deadline went. Months of speculation were brought to a conclusion. How would the New Orleans Pelicans add to and complement their young core? What moves could be in store to launch this 19-24 team into playoff contention?
At this stage last season the Breakers were 3-9, soon to be 4-10, just getting themselves out from the self-inflicted wound that was Glen Rice Jr and with RJ Hampton nearing his fifteenth and final appearance for the club.
When bringing you these yarns about Steven Adams throughout the NBA season, it’s always important to keep things in context. Especially for a team-first dude like Adams who wouldn’t think twice about sacrificing his personal stats for team success
This is such a weird season, man. The Pelicans started 4-2. Then they sunk to 5-10. Next thing they reel off a few wins and are up to 11-12... then come a few more defeats and that’s been the pattern.
The NBL Cup begins in a few days, with all the teams amassing in Melbourne for a mini-tournament within a tournament. Everybody plays each other once with those games counting also towards the proper season, as well as to a points table specifically for the hub games
The first one of these Steve-o round-ups deliberately avoided making wider judgements about a team that came into this season with a new head coach, a couple new starters, their two best players both under the age of 24, trying to play a very different system of basketball…