Rookie Report is a weekly column looking at how some of the NBA's more notable first-year players are adjusting to their first taste of the pro level. Each week, we'll be looking at a different rook's last three or four games, evaluating their current strengths and weaknesses, and determining where their seasons are likely to go from here. This week, we start with Oklahoma City Thunder center Steven Adams, selected 12th in last year's draft after one season at Pitt.
2013-14 stats: 4.8 PPG, 5.1 RPG, 0.9 APG, 1.3 BPG, 45.5% FG, 63% FG, 0.8 TOV
Rookie role: Backup center to Kendrick Perkins, playing about 19 minutes a game.
Story of season: Look at those above stats, and you'd think that Adams was off to a pretty slow start for his rookie season. He is leading rookies in blocks per game, and ranks fourth in rebounds, but generally, he hasn't been much of a stat stuffer--aside from one 17 and 10 outing he had against the Detroit Pistons, he's yet to put up double digits in any statistical category for a single game. Yet among rookies, Adams ranks second overall in total Win Shares, has the second-highest Offensive Rating among rookies who have played over 100 minutes, and is ranked #2 by ESPN expert David Thorpe among rookies for the season, behind only Sixer phenom Michael Carter-Williams.
So what's the deal? Where is Adams providing his value? Well, much like his OKC second-unit mate Nick Collison, Adams might not be a box score filler, but he's done enough outside the stat sheet to still have an impact on nearly every play on both sides of the ball during his 19 minutes a game. He's a smart player, and he's a tough player, and on a team like Oklahoma City that doesn't necessarily need much further help in the scoring or playmaking department, he's simply filled in the gaps around the team's stars and given them the kind of highly skilled complementary player that they're certainly going to need on their front lines in the years going forward.
Let's take a closer look, then, at the ways Adams is helping the Thunder this season, and some of the areas where he still has considerable room for improvement.
Looking Good:
1. Screen setting. Watch Adams, and the first thing that pops out about his game is easily his productivity as a screen setter. He gets in good position for him, he's a big and sturdy enough dude that it's basically impossible to run through him, and he's not above dragging his feet or swinging his hips a little bit to stretch the letter of the law and give his teammates that extra few feet or milliseconds of space to get off a shot or turn the corner towards the basket.
Take a look at Adams torturing poor Bucks point guard Luke Ridnour on a trio of high screens here, each of which lead to Thunder scores or foul shots by the man Adams springs:
Adams has also proven exceptionally adept at getting his teammates loose off pindowns and flare screens, as they pop out to the wings and three-point territory for open jumpers:
Occasionally, Adams goes a little too dirty with his screens and gets called for offensive fouls as a result, but the number of successful screens he sets to get his teammates open looks is well worth the occasional turnover--he's probably worth at least another five points a game on offense just with those picks.
2. Pick-and-roll defense. Defending the pick-and-roll in the Thunder's system, Adams ends up switched onto opposing point guards a whole lot, and has generally done a nice job of shutting down any potential corner-turning drives to the basket from those point guards and occasionally being part of two-man traps on the ball, while managing to recover to his own man in time to prevent any easy looks inside. Here, he helps Thunder point guard Derek Fisher on a couple P&R traps far from the basket, helping force a couple broken possessions:
In garbage time against the Jazz on Sunday, Adams got a steal just by recovering back to his man off the switch in time to pick off the predictable entry pass:
Of course, Adams being solid navigating the pick-and-roll doesn't always result in a takeaway--sometimes it just gives up a low-percentage look, or kills time off the clock as the offense has to run a new play altogether. Here against the Clippers, Adams just shows on the P&R, and recovers to his original man (DeAndre Jordan) in time to box him out--also a specialty of Adams'--and get a hand on the defensive board.
3. Distributing from the low post. With playmakers like Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant, Reggie Jackson and Jeremy Lamb, obviously the Thunder don't need or choose to run a ton of their offense through a limited rookie center like Steven Adams. Still, for a man with only 11 assists on the season, Adams has shown a surprisingly deft touch when it comes to hitting cutters coming down the lane for easy scores while setting up on the low block. Watch Adams show off his no-look chops in a couple different games here:
Adams' post game is definitely a work in progress--we'll touch on that more later in the Report--but he's proven to have a very nice eye for distributing, which could prove fairly useful for a team with as many off-the-ball weapons as OKC, and is a weapon they certainly lacked from their other centers, Kendrick Perkins and Hasheem Thabeet.
4. Straight-up shoving defenders out of position. One of the shadier, but more effective tactics regularly deployed by Adams is his ability to clear space in the half-court by just dragging his man from one spot on the floor clear to another. Calling these "moving screens" doesn't nearly do them justice--Adams basically serves as offensive lineman for his QB, and surprisingly, he seems to be mostly getting away with it. Look at how he drags the much skinnier Ryan Hollins all the way from the top of the key to the restricted circle trying to make room for Kevin Durant behind the arc:
The really remarkable thing here is that not only does Adams not get called for an offensive foul, he actually gets Hollins whistled and earns a trip to the foul line. That's some Jedi screen-setting right there.
Later in the Clippers game, Adams gives DeAndre Jordan a shove in the post, this time knocking Jordan into the driving Reggie Jackson, earning Jackson a couple free throws as DeAndre stares on in disbelief.
Definitely not 100% legal, probably not 100% ethical, but dirty work is still work, and it's gonna continue helping the Thunder win games as long as he gets away with it.
Not so much:
1. Fouls, fouls, fouls. Adams just fouls too damn much. He's currently averaging nearly three whistles a game, which rates out to about five and a half per 36 minutes--third-highest among rookies with at least 100 minutes this season. That's arguably forgivable for someone in Adams' current role, since it's not such a big deal to collect fouls like skee-ball tickets when you're playing under 20 minutes a game anyway, but it certainly isn't sustainable if Adams wants to eventually slide into the team's starting pivot role, which by all accounts he should at some point in the not-too-distant future.
Plus, often these fouls comes at silly moments, like when he accidentally hits Blake Griffin in the face going for an offensive rebound on a free throw, or here when he tries to sneak in for a block on Milwaukee big man Ekpe Udoh:
Kevin Durant is already on the defensive case, with Udoh having only a slight strength advantage on Durant, and without much of a proven offensive game to be able to easily maneuver past KD in the post. But rather than leave Durant with the one-on-one assignment, Adams risks going for the over-the-back block with Udoh in mid air, which is often whistled for a foul almost by default.
You hate to tell a player with a motor as impressive as Adams' to reign it in a little, since so much of his production comes from his relentless activity, but he has to learn to pick his spots a little if he wants to stay on the court for big minutes.
2. Overly aggressive help defense. This often goes hand-in-hand with Adams fouling too much, but sometimes, his incessant ball pursuit just comes at the expense of opening easy passing lines for the ball-handler to get ridiculously easy looks for their bigs underneath. Adams got burned in this respect a couple times against the Nuggets when he was too aggressive helping on drives by the Denver guards, like on this early one from Ty Lawson:
Adams begins the play pointing at Nuggets forward JJ Hickson, seemingly imploring one of his teammates to pick him up as an assignment, but really, he's the one who should pick him up--frontcourt mate Serge Ibaka is already entrenched with Denver four-man Kenneth Faried on the strong side, and nobody else on the team can handle Hickson's size. Instead of checking him in the halfcourt though, Adams chooses to act as an extra help man on the Lawson-Faried pick-and-roll, leaving Hickson a clear lane to the basket for an easy dunk off the well-timed Lawson feed.
Elsewhere, against the Los Angeles Clippers, Adams again pursues the ball while losing track of his man, this time on penetration by L.A. point guard Darren Collison:
Adams does well to close off the drive that frontcourt mate Nick Collison neglects to stop on the pick-and-roll, for fear of leaving his man Jared Dudley open for three on the wing. But once he stops Darren's penetration, allowing Thunder point Reggie Jackson to get back into position against his man, Adams needs to relocate his own man, Ryan Hollins, underneath the basket. Instead of doing that, Adams continues his contest in the paint, and Collison finds Hollins for the easy bucket under the basket.
The aggressive help defense from Adams is mostly a good thing, as seen by his impressive block rate and low defensive rating (100, tied for second-lowest on the Thunder), but he could be even more effective by cleaning up some of these mental miscues.
3. Scoring touch in the post. Simply put, Adams isn't a scorer at this point in his career. He can get spare buckets here and there off broken plays, offensive rebounds and fast break run-outs, but in terms of dumping the ball to him in the post and asking him to make something happen, he hasn't proved particularly capable this season.
That's not surprising--he wasn't much of a scorer in his one season at Pitt either, averaging just seven points a game. But what is surprising is that he has shown to have a couple half-decent post moves--he just doesn't seem to have the accompanying soft touch with his scoring yet to go with it. He's getting good shots, they're just not going down:
If he can start regularly turning these good looks into easy buckets, that'll be one of the final steps in turning himself from being a useful role player to being a legitimately important part of the Thunder's future--and at the very least, an unquestioned improvement upon the offensively repugnant Kendrick Perkins at center.
4. Scoring touch off teammates' action. One-on-one isn't the only area where Adams' offense has been struggling recently. In the stretch of four games I monitored, the New Zealand big man also had difficulty scoring off the playmaking of his teammates, in the half-court and in the open-court. Take a look at a couple disastrous offensive possessions from Sunday's game against the Jazz:
For all of Adams' obvious skill as a picker in the P&R, he seems to be lacking in drive as a roller--both plays here, he seems caught off-guard by the dishes made to him by Thunder ball-handlers Reggie Jackson and Jeremy Lamb. To be fair, neither pass is exactly delivered on the money, but with a higher degree of readiness, Adams could probably have still collected them and made a motion towards the relatively unguarded basket, or at least prevented them from turning into turnovers.
Earlier in the game, he showed a frustrating lack of awareness while running on the fast break with Kevin Durant, also leading to a turnover:
As you can see from this freeze frame, Adams clearly has the step on Jazz big Enes Kanter while running the floor, while the only Jazz defenders in the frame have their attentions clearly focused on Kevin Durant:
If Adams continues running to the basket, it should create an opportunity for an easy lob from Durant, who has the height and the vision to put Adams in the right position for the oop. But instead, Adams slows to a trot as he crosses half court, giving Kanter the opportunity to catch up with him:
By the time Durant throws the lob, Kanter is in position to easily break up the pass, starting the break the other way and finishing in an easy score from Jazz forward Gordon Hayward. Again, not a great lob pass from Durant, but had Adams gone to the rim at full speed, it probably wouldn't have mattered--anything in the vicinity and he would have been able to finish easily.
As I've said already, Adams doesn't have to average 20 or even 12 a game to be a key player on this Thunder team. But by not putting himself in position to score on the easy opportunities he's presented with, he's hurting the offense--in a way that's acceptable for a rookie, but will be less forgivable if he's still doing it a couple years from now.
Where does Adams go from here? Well, everyone seems to assume that Adams will soon wrest the starting center position away from Kendrick Perkins, who is playing fewer minutes per game than Adams anyway, and who lacks even Adams' modest offensive upside, while also being considerably more plodding and mistake-prone in the open court. Still, Thunder coach Scott Brooks and Thunder stars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook continue to show an unusual amount of trust in their veteran big man, while Brooks has deployed something of a quick hook with Adams in his debut season, not even playing him at all in the second half of the Nuggets game after a couple of bad defensive errors in the first half.
To seize the starting job, or at least starters' minutes, Adams will likely have to prove that he can both cut down on his considerable foul rate, and that he can be a consistent finisher--not necessarily a go-to guy in the post like Charles Barkley will no doubt implore him to be on TNT broadcasts, but a guy who can catch and finish on the pick-and-roll, and who can get himself a couple opportunities a game with his youth and athleticism just powering by opposing bigs, particularly on the break. If Adams can make those steps, he may find himself as the rookie with the best--perhaps only--chance of being a key player on a title contender this postseason.
