One of the truly glamorous aspects of sportswriting is standing in the middle of a professional team’s locker room, watching guys changing their clothes.
They don’t want you there. You don’t want to be there. But you have to be, so you can be one of many to interview the hero of that night’s game. So you shift from foot to foot. Check your phone. Shift some more. Check some more.
Finally the guy emerges from the shower, and after doing the necessary primping – who knew it could take so long to button one’s shirt? – deigns us worthy of an audience. He utters a few banalities, and everybody goes on their way.
It was while standing in the Oklahoma City Thunder’s locker room several years ago that I noticed their center, Steven Adams, sitting off to the side by himself. He is an imposing figure – 6-11, muscular, wild-haired, bearded, heavily tatted. But he also has a well-deserved reputation for being one of the NBA’s truly decent people, as is typical of the people in his homeland, New Zealand.
I had traveled to that nation with my wife, Barb, just a few years before, in 2015. Went to visit our son, Ryan, who was an exchange student there. In the process we found ourselves in Rotorua, a city on the North Island known for its geothermal springs and its preservation of the culture of the Maori people, the indigenous Polynesians who had settled there in the 14th century (and who still comprise nearly half the population of Rotorua).
The place has its touristy elements, and while wandering through a downtown souvenir shop one day I was surprised to come upon a cache of NBA jerseys. And there among them was one for, yes, Steven Adams.
It occurred to me only belatedly that that was his hometown, and I mentioned that to him that night in the locker room.
He found that amusing.
“You were probably thinking, who is this impostor?” he said in that lovely Kiwi accent.
Spin things ahead now, to this season. Adams, now 31 and 12 years into his career (including 2023-24, which he missed with a knee injury), is now a backup for the Houston Rockets, his fourth team. And they looked like impostors while falling into a 3-1 hole in their first-round playoff series against Golden State.
But the Rockets have won the last two to force a Game 7 on Sunday in Houston. Veteran guard Fred VanVleet has found his stroke, scoring 29 in Friday’s 115-107 victory in San Francisco after notching 25 and 26 in the two previous games. The Rockets’ young, springy defenders have made life increasingly difficult for Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler, and the Dubs can’t seem to find a reliable third scoring option.
Also, Rockets coach Ime Udoka settled on a lineup Friday that included starting center Alperen Sengun and Adams. And that flustered the undersized Warriors even more, at both ends of the floor. They struggled to get anything done on the glass, and struggled to get good looks against a Houston zone.
Sengun finished with 21 points, 14 rebounds and six assists. Adams, a non-factor in the first five games, played 31 minutes off the bench (his most in two years), and fashioned a stat line – 17 points (on four-for-four shooting), five boards, three blocks – that only hints at his impact.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr told reporters that Adams was “fantastic.” VanVleet told ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt that his teammate was “the ultimate man” and “like a big caveman.”
“He’s impacting us on another level – a historical level, honestly,” VanVleet told Van Pelt. “We’re gonna play him ‘til he dies out there.”
So desperate were the Warriors to turn the tide that they resorted to a hack-an-Adams strategy at various points in the second half. He made only nine of his 16 free throws, but the Rockets turned two of his misses into second-chance points.
By the fourth quarter, the Warriors were out of gas; even Curry and Playoff Jimmy couldn’t save them. They missed 14 of their first 15 shots in the period and fell behind by 17. Game over.
Adams was predictably glib when he addressed reporters afterward.
“What difference do I make?” he asked a questioner, sounding surprised. “I’m not sure. I just follow the game plan, bro.”
He went on to explain the defensive success of the Rockets, who have been stout at that end all year. He riffed on VanVleet’s resurgence, discussed the way he and his teammates have settled into their roles (“Good job to the lads,” he said) and finished by discussing Houston’s rebound in the series.
“We were right there,” he said of the three earlier losses. “Since you’re right there, you just make slight adjustments, be more confident with your stuff. That’s what’s been happening.”
Interesting guy. According to a 2012 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story, he is the youngest of 18 children his late father Sid fathered by five women. (One of the other 17 is Steven’s sister Valerie, who twice won Olympic gold medals in the shot put.)
That same story said Steven was knocked sideways by Sid’s death in 2006 – that he strayed and became something of a trouble-maker. But finding hoops enabled him to find his bearings. He came to the states, played a year at Pitt and was the 12th pick in the 2013 draft; he is the most recent of four New Zealanders to play in the NBA.
“I kind of let go of a lot of stuff,” Adams told the Post-Gazette’s Ray Fittipaldo. “It’s not good being angry. At that time when dad passed away, I had a whole bunch of anger. Now it’s just like, let it go. I try to feel happier. Don’t give a (darn) about a lot of stuff. I kind of don’t care much. I know what to stay focused on. All the other stuff to get angry about, I don’t give a (darn).”
He is still an imposing figure on the court, still a guy you wouldn’t want to mess with. But he has maintained an ability to gear back when away from it. He’s now eminently approachable, a guy who is anything but an impostor. Good job to the lad on that.