When it comes to direct comparisons between Steven Adams and Jonas Valanciunas, most Memphis Grizzlies fans will give the nod to JV by a wide margin. Rightfully so too, as the Lithuanian big man is coming off of the best season of his career while his Kiwi replacement is coming off of one of the worst seasons of his career.
Fortunately for Memphis, Adams’ off-year with the Pelicans in 2020-21 might benefit the Grizzlies. Here’s why.
Ask anybody — Steven Adams is one of the more overpaid players in the league. His $35 million over the next two seasons will attest to that, as he became the Grizzlies’ highest-paid player by a mile in terms of guaranteed cash.
Steven Adams is objectively a great fit for the Memphis Grizzlies at a good value, at least down the road
It’s unclear what the Grizzlies plan to do with Adams right now, though one simple fact remains true — Adams is a serviceable NBA center. If any given person made a list, they’d rank Adams somewhere in the top-15. It’s a drop-off from Valanciunas, who looked like a top-five center, but it’s something worth exploring.
Adams does a few things right.
For starters, he’s an excellent defender. In his prime, he averaged a block per game and 1.5 steals per contest. This bodes well for the Grizzlies’ current roster, which holster’s Xavier Tillman Sr., a defense-first small-bodied center. Keeping Adams around means keeping around one of the best mentors a young center can ask for.
Offensively, there is a lot of work to be done, though the center from New Zealand is as close of a player as Memphis could have asked for in a replacement for Jonas Valanciunas. He can’t shoot but he does everything else that JV did, allowing him to average 13.9 points in two consecutive seasons with the Thunder. He’s strong in the pick and roll offense and knows how to hit a floater — something that Taylor Jenkins loves to do.
Even if the Grizzlies don’t get immediate productivity out of Adams — scratch that — especially if the Grizzlies don’t get immediate productivity out of Adams, his value to the team skyrockets.
It’s impossible to say what the team in Memphis will be looking like financially after giving out a handful of contracts between Ja Morant, Jaren Jackson Jr., and a few other players, so finding a cheap, productive center should be a huge priority. If Adams produces at the same level as he did in New Orleans, he won’t be in the market for a significant payday.
Say what you want about Valanciunas — it would have been a bad look for the Grizzlies to hand an aging center a hefty contract extension, if they could even scrape together the money, to help a youthful team reach the playoffs on a yearly basis.
Value is the name of the game when it comes to the Kiwi center. Right now, Adams’ value is as low as ever, but in a couple of seasons, it could be higher than it has been since earlier on in his career.
This is why Adams could be one of the keys to the Memphis Grizzlies’ future.