After playing only one year at Pittsburgh, Steven Adams is considered one of the rawest prospects to enter the draft. Adams is your typical late bloomer that didn’t really start getting serious about basketball until a later age, but he possesses a ton of upside.
Adams had decent productivity while in college. He only played 23.4 minutes per game which is barely over half the fixture and still managed to score 7.2 points and pull down 6.3 rebounds per contest. He also shot a very respectable 57.1% from the floor.
What really jumps about Adams is his physical profile. He possesses great size (7’0”) and a strong frame (255 lbs.) paired with a ridiculous wingspan (7’4.5”). He also is very athletic; his quickness allows him to be an effective player on both ends of the floor.
Adams has shown a lot of potential as a rim protector. His wingspan allows him to make a tremendous impact as a shot-blocker; he averaged an impressive two blocks per game last year at Pittsburgh. Adams also showed a ton of potential on the glass. He averaged 6.3 rebounds per game, and 2.8 came on the offensive glass. He could be very good on putback opportunities in the NBA.
Adams also runs the floor very well for a player of his size, but he really needs to improve his free throw shooting in order to increase his scoring. Adams also apparently has a great work ethic, and he plays with a tremendous amount of energy. He’s a competitor and is said to be easy to coach.
Overall, Adams has a ton of upside, possibly more than any other big man in the draft. He can be really, really good. Adams’ overall offensive game is still a work-in-progress. Most of his baskets at Pitt came simply off of putbacks or dunks in transition.
His back-to-the-basket game has a long way to go; although he showed some signs of possibly one day being really good in that aspect of his game, it’s just not there right now. He’s also worked really hard the past few years on improving his jump shot.
A few years ago, Adams jumper featured a really ugly hitch and wasn’t very efficient. He’s eliminated that hitch, and he’s started making more outside shots since. If he can continue to improve here, he really has a chance to be one the best players from this draft class, if not the best.
As far as weaknesses go, Adams still hasn’t really played basketball against a higher level of competition yet. The one year he played in the Big East, he was really inconsistent, so we don’t have a very large sample size of his game and overall abilities yet. There’s a very good chance that he’ll spend most of his first year on the bench, but that’s probably best for him.
It’s easy to see why Adams is such an intriguing prospect in the eyes of many scouts. He has a lot of tools to work with, and he’s just touching the surface of his immense abilities. He’s definitely going to enter the league as a project, so he needs to be patient early on. If he continues to improve, he could become one of the best big men in the league a few years down the road. Adams is climbing up draft boards after a great combine and could sneak into the lottery.
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By Brian Emory
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