Something’s Seriously Wrong With Steven Adams: Inside the Mysterious Decline of the NBA’s Toughest Center and What It Means for His Future

On the surface, it looks like the kind of deal that analytics was supposed to eliminate.

Houston just handed a 32‑year‑old center a three‑year, $39 million extension. He averages under four points per game. He doesn’t shoot threes. He misses more than half his free throws. In an NBA obsessed with spacing, skill, and “five‑out” systems, it reads like a relic from another era.

Until you look at what Steven Adams actually does on a basketball court—and realize that Houston may have just paid market value for something almost no one else in the league can provide.

Hidden underneath modest counting stats and a shot chart that looks like a paint stain is one of the strangest statistical feats in modern NBA history, and a skill so valuable that it quietly bends the math of the game in his team’s favor.

The Rockets didn’t lose their minds. They saw something most people still don’t know happened.

The Center Who Doesn’t Fit the Era

The modern NBA sells a simple idea: if you’re a big man and you can’t shoot, you can’t play.

Stretch bigs, pick‑and‑pop centers, seven‑footers launching from 30 feet—this is the aesthetic the league has marketed for a decade. The archetype of the “valuable” modern center is a supersized guard: dribble, pass, shoot, switch.

On paper, Steven Adams is everything the analytics movement supposedly pushed out of the sport:

He doesn’t shoot threes.
He can’t create his own shot.
His free throw percentage is, kindly, a liability.
His scoring numbers look like they were plucked from 1993.

If you skim his box score, he looks like a minimum-salary backup big in a league that has passed him by.

But box scores don’t tell you that in eight of the last nine seasons he’s played, Adams’ team has finished first in the entire NBA in offensive rebounding. Not top five. Not top three. Number one.

That level of consistency doesn’t happen by accident. It doesn’t ride on “energy” or “effort” alone. It’s the product of someone who has turned one skill into a weapon so sharp that it undermines the logic of three‑point math.

The Best Offensive Rebounder Ever Measured

Last season, Steven Adams did something no one in NBA history had ever done.

Per 36 minutes, he posted the highest offensive rebounding rate ever recorded—better than Dennis Rodman, better than Moses Malone, better than Dwight Howard, better than any name you associate with the art of extending possessions.

This isn’t a cherry‑picked advanced metric built to flatter a role player. It’s one of the most basic, fundamental stats we have: how often did your team retrieve its own missed shot when you were on the floor?

By that measure, Adams didn’t just lead the league. He broke it.

His offensive rebound percentage wasn’t a marginal edge. It was a full‑on statistical anomaly—an outlier at the very top of the historical leaderboard. The kind of number that, if you saw it in a video game, you’d assume the settings were broken.

And then he went about his business as if nothing had happened.

Ask Adams about it, and you can practically script the answer: some variation of “just trying to get the ball, mate,” delivered in his understated New Zealand drawl. No grand declarations. No victory lap. Just a shrug.

But what looks like brute strength and hustle is, in reality, a highly refined skill.

Offensive Rebounds as “Silent Turnovers”

To understand why Houston was willing to spend $39 million on a low‑usage center in a high‑spacing era, you have to change the way you think about possession.

Every time a defense forces a miss, they’ve “earned” a possession with good positioning, communication, and effort. When an offensive rebound wipes that out, it’s the functional equivalent of a turnover—only the offense never had to dribble.

Viewed that way, offensive rebounds are not just extra chances. They are takeaways.

And Adams generates more of those takeaways than anyone else of his generation.

The on/off numbers support the eye test. When Adams is on the floor, his teams rebound an estimated 19% better than when he sits. Nineteen percent is not a small marginal gain. It’s the difference between average and elite, between “we’re fine” and “no one can keep us off the glass.”

Over an 82‑game season, those extra possessions may translate to 10–15 additional points in the standings, especially for a young team still learning how to close games. Second‑chance points are back‑breakers. They demoralize defenses that did everything right for 23 seconds, only to see the ball ripped away and put back in.

In Houston’s system—where dynamic guards like Jalen Green and Amen Thompson attack the rim and pull up from deep—those extra chances are essentially free points: more threes, more cuts, more trips to the line.

Adams rarely touches the ball on those plays. But he’s why they happen.

The Science Behind the Chaos

Ask Jaren Jackson Jr. what makes Adams special, and he’ll talk less about strength and more about preparation.

In Memphis, Jackson noted, Adams had a pregame ritual that looked less like a warmup and more like a lab experiment. He would stand under the basket and study the way the ball bounced off the rim from different angles, speeds, and spots on the floor.

Shot from the left wing? It tends to ricochet here. High arcing corner three? It kicks differently. Long top-of-the-key miss? Different again.

It’s Dennis Rodman‑type work, done without the fanfare.

Rebounding, at the NBA level, isn’t simply “wanting it more.” It’s anticipation and geometry.

Adams:

Establishes position early.
Calculates likely trajectories based on shooter, angle, and distance.
Moves defenders out of the way before the ball hits the rim.

And then his trademark trait takes over: strength.

Cartoon-Strength in a Real League

Steven Adams might be the most physically imposing player in the NBA.

Not tallest. Not longest. Just strongest.

Watch him for five minutes and you’ll see it. A 6‑foot‑7, 225‑pound forward like Jonathan Kuminga—built like an NFL linebacker—gets moved two feet off his spot as if Adams is rearranging furniture. Centers who regularly bully others in the paint find themselves sealed out of plays before they can jump.

The key isn’t just that Adams can out‑jump or out‑muscle opponents. It’s that he doesn’t need to out‑jump them if he’s already claimed the landing zone. Their vertical advantage disappears when they’re standing behind him. They can have a 40‑inch vertical. It won’t matter if his body cuts off the path to the ball.

That strength also manifests in a quieter way: durability.

Across his career, Adams has had injuries like anyone else, but he’s built a reputation as one of the toughest players in the league, often playing through ailments that would sideline others. He once joked that he doesn’t ice after games because, “I’m from New Zealand, mate. The cold doesn’t bother me.”

The humor is dry. The message is not. The Rockets aren’t just paying for rebounding. They’re paying for a center who is willing and able to absorb nightly collisions so that younger, more fragile stars don’t have to.

The Screens You Don’t See—and the Points You Do

If offensive rebounding is the most easily measurable part of Adams’ value, his screening might be the most underrated.

Screens rarely show up in traditional stats. They show up as “open shots” for someone else.

Watch a Rockets game closely and track what happens when Jalen Green or another guard comes off an Adams pick:

The on‑ball defender is often two steps behind almost instantly.
The rim protector has to step up higher than he wants.
Weak‑side defenders are forced to rotate earlier, leaving shooters open.

All of that because one 6‑foot‑11, 250‑pound man set his feet and decided no one was going through him.

Those chain reactions don’t show up in Adams’ points per game or usage rate. But they show up in Houston’s offensive efficiency splits with him on and off the court.

A good screen is the offensive equivalent of great on‑ball defense: it shrinks options and forces bad decisions. Adams does it 20–30 times a night, willingly absorbing contact others would avoid.

In an era that tracks shot quality, spacing, and “expected effective field goal percentage,” what he does is incredibly valuable. It’s just invisible unless you know where to look.

The Culture Guy: From OKC to Memphis to Houston

Stats alone don’t explain why three different organizations have valued Adams as highly as they have.

In Oklahoma City, he was the anchor behind Russell Westbrook’s triple‑double explosion. Westbrook has openly said he could play that frenetic style—crashing the glass from the perimeter, pushing in transition—because he knew Steven Adams would be behind him, boxing out two players at once, cleaning up misses, taking hits.

In Memphis, he was the veteran “uncle” for a young core. Ja Morant, Desmond Bane, and Jaren Jackson Jr. didn’t just benefit from his screening and rebounding. They leaned on him for tone‑setting and perspective. Adams was the guy who kept things light when pressure mounted, and grounded when early success hit. He was also the one who, quite literally, stood between his young teammates and opponents when games got chippy.

Now, in Houston, the pattern is repeating.

The Rockets have as much young perimeter talent as any team in the league: Green, Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr., and others. Not one of them cares that Adams scores fewer than four points per game. They love him because he:

Gives them second chances when their shots don’t fall.
Protects them physically on screens and in the paint.
Takes on the “dirty work” jobs that no young star wants as part of his brand.

The before-and-after numbers are telling. Before Adams returned from injury, Houston’s rebounding numbers were middling. After he returned, they jumped back toward the top five in the league.

One player should not be able to do that. But he did.

A $39 Million Question: Who Else Gets Paid Like This?

Here’s a question that crystallizes how strange Adams’ contract really is:

How many players in NBA history have made this kind of impact while averaging under five points per game—and then been rewarded with nearly $40 million in guaranteed money?

The list is almost non‑existent.

NBA contracts generally follow scoring. Points get players paid. Shooters get paid. Creators get paid. Box‑score anomalies do not.

Adams is a unicorn, just not the social‑media kind with step‑back threes and mixtapes. He’s a unicorn in that he’s forcing the game to bend toward his skill set in an era that supposedly shouldn’t tolerate his type of player.

In a league that has convinced itself that “shooting equals value,” Adams is proof that context still matters.

Why Houston’s Gamble Makes Sense

So why did the Rockets do this now?

Several reasons align:

Their roster construction

Their timeline

The market

The playoffs

Viewed through that lens, $39 million isn’t overpaying for four points per game. It’s paying for:

The best offensive rebounding season ever measured.
Elite screening that lifts your creators.
A culture presence that stabilizes a young team.
A level of physicality that opponents don’t want to see in a seven‑game series.

The Thought Experiment: Stretch Five vs. Steven Adams

Ultimately, Houston’s decision forces a philosophical question that every front office must answer in 2025:

If you had to choose between:

a stretch five who shoots 35% from three and survives on defense, or
Steven Adams, who gives you historic offensive rebounding, brutal screens, and culture,

which player gets your money?

There is no universal right answer. On some teams, the stretch big makes more sense. On others, like Houston—loaded with young shot‑creators and in need of structure—the answer is Adams.

The Rockets are betting that winning playoff basketball still has room for old‑school toughness, even in a “positionless,” pace‑and‑space era. That extra possessions, extra bruises delivered, and extra confidence given to young guards are worth more than an additional shooter at the five.

It’s a bet on the idea that not all value is visible in a box score or a shot chart.

The “Bad” Contract That Might Be Great

On its face, a three‑year, $39 million extension for a 32‑year‑old center who scores under four points per game looks like the kind of move fans roast on social media.

Underneath, it may be something else entirely: a smart team paying fair price for a rare skill set.

Steven Adams didn’t get this contract because Houston misread the modern game. He got it because they understand that the modern game is more complicated than a three‑point percentage and a shot diet.

There will always be a place in the league for the player who can quietly change outcomes by doing the things no one else wants to do—and almost no one else can.

If that costs $39 million over three years, the Rockets seem perfectly comfortable footing the bill.

And in a few years, if those offensive rebounds turn into playoff wins, that deal may look less like an overpay and more like a bargain the rest of the league was too distracted to notice.