Steven Adams has had little court time for the Memphis Grizzlies since Game 1. Photo / AP
Steven Adams has had little court time for the Memphis Grizzlies since Game 1. Photo / AP
OPINION:
The NBA playoffs are in full swing, but there has been one notable absence for Kiwi basketball fans: Steven Adams.
Despite the fact that Adams' team, the Memphis Grizzlies, made the playoffs, Adams has only played 31 minutes throughout the Grizzlies first five playoff games, from a possible totalof 240 minutes. During the regular season, Adams averaged more than 26 minutes per game - so why is he struggling for game time now?
Adams does many things on the court at an extremely high level. He led the league in offensive rebounds per game throughout the regular season, grabbing 4.6 per game, and averaged a career-high in assists per game at 3.4 – good for sixth in the league among centres. He played a huge role in Memphis' run for second place in the Western Conference throughout the regular season, but he has struggled when matched up against Karl-Anthony Towns and the seventh-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves in the postseason.
The root of Adams' troubles lies in this inability to guard Towns. Towns, the winner of this year's three-point contest during the All-Star Weekend, has the shooting ability required to pull Adams away from the hoop, where he is most effective. Not only that, but the Timberwolves have regularly forced Adams to switch onto defending against smaller, more agile players. This forces Adams out of his area of strength, in the paint, and exposes one of his weaknesses, his lack of lateral speed.
The Timberwolves scored at will as they ran around Adams throughout his scoreless 24 minutes in Game 1. Adams started in Game 2, but only played three minutes before being benched for the rest of the game. Since then, Adams has only been seen for four minutes across the following three games.
Karl-Anthony Towns has had success against Steven Adams. Photo / Getty
Adams' negative impact throughout the playoffs is evident when looking at the advanced statistics. Net rating, a metric developed to measure a player's overall impact on the floor, subtracts a player's defensive rating from their offensive rating. Throughout the regular season, Adams' net rating was an extremely sharp +8.3. In the playoffs, in a notably small sample size, his net rating is -23.5 – a huge drop-off, and evidence of Adams' inability to both score against and guard the Memphis Grizzlies.
Conversely, the man playing in Adams' place, Brandon Clarke, has a postseason net rating of 10.3. Clarke is a much better fit for these games against the Timberwolves; he is 6'8" and 98kg, as opposed to Adams' 6'11" and 120kg.
Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins called Adams the "ultimate pro" in his post-game press conference following the benching of Adams in Game 2. Outlining the conversation between the two, Jenkins detailed Adams' response to being benched - "We just want to win. Whatever you need to do to win, I'm here for you coach."
But where does this leave New Zealand's highest-paid athlete? Adams won't expect to see much action in Game 6 at 1pm on Saturday afternoon. He has one more season left on his existing contract, worth $26m, making him an unrestricted free agent at the end of next season. Given his lack of playing time in the playoffs, it remains to be seen if an NBA team will match this number – or if Adams is in line for a pay cut.
