Originally Posted by
Pelicanidae
I just woke up and saw this, and here are my initial thoughts:
1) I like it quite a lot. I've said a few times on the board over the last year or so that I would quite like acquiring Adams if the cost wasn't too high, and frankly a 2023 Denver pick with lottery protections on it is not that expensive in my eyes.
2) Steven Adams is a good defender. I saw someone in the thread complaining that he only averaged 0.7 blocks a game, but that is far from indicative of defensive ability: Daniel Theis averaged fewer blocks per game than Hassan Whiteside, but Theis was the far superior defender last year, for example. Adams is a huge guy, who is exceptionally strong, who plays really good positional defense and has very good hands. He's not a top 5 defender in the NBA or anything but he is an above average defensive centre.
3) Adams is one of the best boxing-out bigs in the NBA, and given that the only person on the entire team who boxed out last year with regularity was Favors, I'm glad that we're getting someone back who is willing to do that, and who is also hopefully going to have that ability rub off on Jax.
4) Adams is a brutal screen setter, probably one of the top 5 or 10 screeners in the NBA, with a fantastic knack for angles and absurd strength. Having him with someone like Kira Lewis, who is fairly weak physically and will need some extra space in the PnR as a rookie, is a brilliant combination. The fact that Adams is also the kind of big who will happily screen far away from the ball, even up to the half court line in transition, benefits everyone on this team that excels in the full-court, including Kira, Zion, Lonzo, etc.
5) Everything I've ever heard about Adams and every interview I've ever seen tells me he's a really nice guy who is a hard worker and who doesn't complain, and who improves the culture of a locker room.
6) Adams is actually a really solid passer for a big. Obviously for most of his career this didn't get to show because he was on a team with some absurdly high usage guys like Westbrook where he never got to hold the ball for longer than a DHO, but it showed up more last year. It's encouraging.
7) Adams rolls really consistently which is huge for spacing, actually. While it's true that it would be nice if he could stretch the floor, the reality is that you can't get too hung up on one single skill like that. A big who is an elite finisher (Adams shot 74% at the rim last year, same sort of numbers as AD and Gobert) who is willing to just relentlessly roll also creates a degree of space because he drags his defenders around with him and draws help. Yes, it would be cool if he could shoot, but this isn't the end of the universe.
8) The size of the contract and the fact that it's expiring gives us a ton of options at the end of the year and going into free agency next season, which even though we are not a huge FA destination, is still something worth considering. Plus, Adams is only 27 so if we end up resigning him I'm fairly sure we'd be able to do so for a better deal than he's currently on given the general ''NBA bigs in free agency'' thing where the prices are not that high. He could easily test the market and find that nobody is willing to offer more than, say, $13m a year, and we just come in and give him $15m and then he stays or something like that.
Those are my initial thoughts. I like it.
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