RADIO
Fresh off a fantastic triple overtime victory on Friday over the 76ers, the Oklahoma City Thunder look to ease off its fans’ worries. It’s been a rollercoaster in the past two years for die hard Thunder fans: a gut-wrenching 2016 loss of Kevin Durant to the League’s villains, the Golden State Warriors, followed by a 2017 summer in which Sam Presti praises were sung to the heavens for flipping Victor Oladipo, Domantis Sabonis, Doug McDermott, and Enes Kanter for Paul George and Carmelo Anthony.
But now Thunder fans are fuming again as they are on the fringe of a playoff spot and aren’t seeing their “Big 3” working the way they were expected to. But this article isn’t meant to break down the commonly critiqued players: Russell Westbrook, George, and Anthony. Instead it’s to focus on their center, Steven Adams, who has been a lynchpin for this team despite frequent changes to the roster.
Steven Adams is putting up career numbers, and most surprisingly, he has seen an increase in usage rate. He is currently really outshining his original fantasy expected ranking. Is this an early season fluke or is Adams a surprise beneficiary to the confusion that the Thunder squad is facing? Back to focus on another big man in the NBA, I’m going to dissect New Zealand’s finest, Steven Adams.
Steven Adams: A Dive Down Under Oklahoma City’s “Big 3”
First off, we have to take into consideration that Steven Adams is a more traditional big man. He isn’t one of those “unicorns” with special skillsets like Joel Embiid or Nikola Jokic. Traditional big men often play with their backs to the basket. They don’t really handle the ball outside of finishing lobs or passing out to cutters and/or corner shooters. These centers mostly set screens, act as the roll man, and are defensive-minded entities. For fantasy basketball, they provide good field goal percentage, rebounds, and blocks, but don’t move the meter in other categories such as three-point shooting or free throw percentage. For these reasons, there are only a few traditional big men who are still thriving in their roles or highly valued in fantasy leagues. Some names that come to mind are Clint Capela, Andre Drummond, and DeAndre Jordan.
Before the season started, ESPN projected Adams to be picked around pick #85. But over the season, he is currently the 47th ranked player according to BasketballMonster. If your fantasy team is punting 3s and assists, he is ranked 14th over the season. This season, Adams is averaging 14 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 0.8 assists per game on 64.9% effective field goal percentage and 64.5% free throw percentage. His usage rate is at 16.4%, up a smidge from last season and a career high. He plays 31.8 minutes a game, takes 9.3 shots with 3.2 free throws a game. He also averages 1.2 steals, 1 block, and 1.7 turnovers a game. These are all very promising stat lines for our friend, Adams.
Compared to last season, when Adams was paired with Westbrook the Martyr, he averaged 11.3/7.7/1.1 with 57.1% EFG% and 61.1% FT%. Adams was playing 29.9 minutes, shooting 8.2 shots, and 3.2 free throws a game. He averaged 1.1 steals, 1 block, and 1.8 turnovers. All in all, he looks to be putting up more value than before. Let’s consider some of the reasons why.
First, the roster depth for Oklahoma is… well… there’s no nice way to say this. They have no depth ha ha ha… Adams is the only center they can play. Sometimes Patrick Patterson runs out at the 5 if the Thunder are looking to go small, but Patterson is averaging 13.8 minutes per game. With the departure of Kanter and Sabonis, Adams has to fill in huge minutes. Adams is also the best offensive option by far after the “Big 3”. Most defenders sag heavily off of Andre Roberson and Raymond Felton, who don’t seem to be providing much offense. I can potentially see Adams rising in offensive dependancy since Carmelo is proving to be an isolation-heavy black hole on offense.
Looking at the Thunder as a whole, they are actually playing really well defensively. They are currently ranked 2nd in the league in Defensive Rating with 100.9, which is AWESOME. Roberson and George are excellent wing defenders, and Adams, not only defends the paint, but has been fairly smooth at coming out to defend shooters as well. The problem is that their team is ranked 24th in Offensive Rating, tying teams like the Phoenix Suns (blech). They are also ranked 20th in pace, with 98.62 possessions per game. There isn’t a lot of ball movement going on, but none of that should be blamed on Adams.
Adams excels at setting hard screens for shooters on the wing or running pick and roll offense with Westbrook. Adams currently averages 3.5 possessions per game as the roll man in a PnR with 1.21 points per possessions, coming in only 2nd compared to big men averaging similar roll man possessions. He’s losing only to Capela who is currently living in PnR heaven. Adams also is averaging the second most put back possessions in the league with a massive 4.2 offensive rebound per game average. A lot of easy point opportunities from a lot of missed shots eh?!
The Thunder starting lineup is currently their best lineup by net rating, but Coach Billy Donovan hasn’t given very many minutes to other lineup iterations. Warning: this next take is highly speculative. I’d like to see more lineups with Jerami Grant playing in place of Melo. Melo taking a bench role and crushing the offensive against bench squads could be really effective. Grant is younger, quicker (better for increased pace alongside the human train that is Westbrook), and can be used as a spot up shooter that is better than his paltry shooting percentage now reflects since he’s only taking 1.5 attempts a game. Personally, I think it’s worth a shot given the lineup with Grant has only seen 30 minutes of playing time together compared to 319 minutes for the current starting lineup together.
In addition to the traits mentioned about Adams so far, I really like his injury history in terms of fantasy value. He has played an average of 77.75 games per season. Big men usually get banged inside and are injury prone, which seriously impedes fantasy success. Most centers close to 10 games per season; for example, Capela missed 17 games last season. But Adams and his glorious ‘stache are resilient, and you can count on his health.
To bring things back in perspective, Adams is a stalwart defender who is waiting for his offense to pull itself together. Adams is currently putting up career numbers, but his ceiling with this current roster is going to be even higher. A bonus is the stability of his health and the Thunder’s dependence in his role. If you’re looking for a player who provides rebounds, blocks, and field goal percentage with an upside in points, seek out the man with the mustache. He’s going to be hard to pry away from owners because of his recent numbers, but it’s possible to try to flip him for an owner in your league who is punting Adams’ good categories. I’d try to do a 2for2 or 3for3 trade involving players like Dennis Schroder, Tobias Harris, Tyreke Evans, Goran Dragic, Kent Bazemore, or Joe Ingles. Trust me, you’re going to want this ol’ kiwi later down the line, mate.
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