Basketball: Oklahoma City Thunder star Steven Adams' message of support for victims of Christchurch shootings

Kiwi NBA star Steven Adams has opened up on the Christchurch mass shootings for the first time.

The Oklahoma City Thunder starting centre made two posts on Twitter after Friday's attack which took the lives of 50 people but had not addressed media in the US before yesterday's 116-107 loss to Miami.

Admitting it was tough to be away from his home country at such a tough time, Adams said he trusted and was thankful for the people in New Zealand supporting the Christchurch community.

"All the right people, more important than me, are doing the right things over there," Adams told The Oklahoman. "Any decent person would say, along with me, that obviously, it's a bad thing. I'm just trying to send them support, but I feel like the right people are making the right moves down there.

"Whatever it is, they're going to have more of an impact than me, because they're going to make a proper change.

"They're on the ground there. I'm a New Zealander from afar. It obviously absolutely sucks what happened to my country. That's what hurts the most for me.

"But, again, there's a lot more people who are actually friends of these people. They need the support, not me."

Adams had posted the prayer hand emoji to Twitter on the day of the horrific attack with the hashtag "KiaKaha".

He followed with a heartfelt post a day later which read: "Nga mihi aroha Aotearoa, New Zealand. Shocked and saddened to hear about the tragedy in Christchurch. Sending my aroha to the whanau back home particularly to those that have lost loved ones."

🙏🙏🙏#Kiakaha

— Steven Adams (@RealStevenAdams) March 15, 2019

Nga mihi aroha Aotearoa, New Zealand. Shocked and saddened to hear about the tragedy in Christchurch. Sending my aroha to the whanau back home particularly to those that have lost loved ones. #Peace #Theyareus

— Steven Adams (@RealStevenAdams) March 16, 2019