re: Report: People around NBA expect Pelicans to trade #10 pick

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Compare his salary to starting centers that get signed this offseason. You can’t just compare overall center salaries because some of those were signed when the cap was lower.

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The cap hasn't changed since 2018-19 so doubt it has that much of an impact. Based on his skills as a "traditional center", he should be very far down the list.

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The cap hasn't changed since 2018-19

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It was ~102 in 18-19 and will be ~112 in 21-22

Personally, I don’t even compare Adams to other centers. I just look at the money he is paid and try to find where he impacts winning and whether he adds plus or minus value based on what he makes vs what value other players add at a similar salary level.

He’s a good rebounder and screener. He’s legit terrible at everything else and his game doesn’t fit the nba.

If Adams could still move his feet on D and actually defend on the perimeter or protect the rim, I think most of us would feel better about him. He just aint it. Even the bigger slower centers like Embiid, Porz, Jokic, the only way he has to defend any of them is give them space and hope they get baited into a jumpshot they end up missing. It’s not like he locks them up. They occasionally lock themselves up with their shot selection.

I’ve never seen a more limited defender in my life. Then offensively he basically can’t do anything or hit even half of his free throws.

He’s a minimum player at this juncture of his career. Taxpayer MLE if we are being kind.

I remember the first year of Asik. He actually helped the team win games that year and that’s part of the reason why Dell fooled himself into giving him a 5 year extension. Adams did not help us win games this year.

I’m sure he knows this too. He’s a very self aware guy.

I think the only Adams defenders on this board do so because they don’t want to concede how bad of a move it was to bring him in, pay him, and then play him big minutes even though he might have played a total of 4 good games all season.

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I think the only Adams defenders on this board do so because they don’t want to concede how bad of a move it was to bring him in, pay him, and then play him big minutes even though he might have played a total of 4 good games all season.

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he's not nearly as bad as people make him out to be, but it's not even about him as a player. we need that contract to make bigger moves

how do we acquire a max-level guy this offseason without that $17M in salary? bledsoe's contract won't be enough. we'd have to give up Zo on a sign/trade and that may not be optimal. you need salary to trade for salary in the NBA

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how bad of a move it was to bring him in, pay him, and then play him big minutes even though he might have played a total of 4 good games all season.

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you could not run hayes out there the first half.

hernangomez was pretty good.

what would you have done?

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Are you insinuating we could combine Adams and Bled for a max guy, therefore implying that Team X would be ok taking on both those negative contracts?

If so, we'd have to give up all the picks

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We wouldn't have had to give up picks if it were George Hill and Darius miller and a pick instead steven adams? I'm not sure of a scenario we are trading for a max that doesn't involve trading all the picks, that's a given.

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he's not nearly as bad as people make him out to be

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I just watched Steven's OKC highlights: LINK

That's the guy that we thought we were getting, and it's not who Adams turned out to be this past season. The guy in that video is much quicker and much more explosive than the guy who played for us last year.

That means that Adams either:

1) Got old really quickly, or
2) Played most of last season with a nagging injury that never really had time to heal.

I think that there's real reason to hope that #2 is the case, because he won't turn 28 until later this month.

We also lacked the complementary players to use Adams effectively on the offensive end, because he's a really good roller, and Bledsoe and Ball are poor P&R initiators, because neither of them are a threat to get to the rim with consistency.

Still, according to Cleaning the Glass, Adams still finished in the 93rd percentile of bigs in OREB%, at 13.7%. He got us a lot more second-chance points than people give him credit for. When he was on the floor, we had an overall 0.3 point differential per 100 possessions, meaning that we played winning basketball.

Yes, Adams sometimes looked bad defensively, but again, how much of that was due to the inability of Ball and Bledsoe to navigate screens? In the P&R, Adams was often left by himself defending two guys headed toward the rim.

There's been a lot of talk about Adams's fit with Zion, and most of the recent discussion has focused on the fact that Zion seems to do just fine with Adams on the floor -- the great fear that Adams would clog the lane up and hinder Zion does not appear to be true, and the offense works well with the two of them sharing the floor.

But, overall, the team was not good with both of them playing together. Lineups that featured Adams but not Zion were +3.5 points per 100 possessions, compared to -1.3 per 100 when they were on the floor together. Lineups with the two of them sharing the floor were in the 15th percentile defensively -- just terrible. So, Steven Adams was really a positive player for us overall, but not when he and Zion share the floor, because the two of them can't seem to play defense together.

Interestingly, Zion and Billy had an overall differential of +13.0, which is incredible. The two of them played amazing basketball together. But when Billy was on the floor without Zion, we were absolutely abysmal, with a -12.8 differential. Those lineups with Billy but without Zion were below average offensively, but they were in the 2nd percentile defensively, giving up 123.7 points per 100 possessions -- horrific.

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That means that Adams either:
1) Got old really quickly, or
2) Played most of last season with a nagging injury that never really had time to heal.

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Unfortunately I think these are kind of the same. That was the wild card when we acquired him. He was still relatively young age wise but his body had a ton of miles on it, especially with the way he plays. Going back to OKC the negative that came with him was the ability to stay healthy the entire season.

If you go back and watch the first couple games of the season (I specifically did the first 8 for research purposes regarding Lonzo) he was incredible. Moved really well, great angles. He did a lot for us defensively. But then he slowed down, and I compared him to how Derrick Favors looked here by the end of that year, where he could barely get off the ground.

I agree, I hate the term (and hate that this even needs to be considered) but Adams almost needs to be on load management. He’s not doing you any good if he isn’t healthy(ish).

We need another good shooter. Joe Harris or pj tucker would be a good fit