Steven Adams
Position: C
Hgt: 7'0"
Wgt: 255
Age: 19
Projected Draft Number: #12 NBADraft.net/#10 Draftexpress.com
College: Pittsburgh
College Stats 2012-13: 23.4min 7.2pts (.571FG% .000TPt% .443FT%) 6.3reb 0.6ast 0.7stl 2.0blk 1.1TO
Baja's Review: I'll start by admitting that I'm biased when it comes to Adams. I really like the kid. Now if you go look up his stats from last season at Pitt, you won't come away impressed. But if you watched him play all year, you would have seen the progress he made in a short period of time. Remember that he comes from New Zealand, which has no AAU basketball program. Sometimes his best competition on a saturday afternoon, was a pickup game against his sister. In highschool in New Zealand, he seldom went up against anyone over 6'7", so he just never had a chance to hone his game against top competition like he would have in the US. He's a very good athlete, whose strength on offense is running the floor in transition. He has good hands and catches the ball very well in traffic. He's a legit seven feet in shoes and weighs 255 pounds, and yet still looks like he could carry another 15 or 20 pounds. Other than running the floor, and scoring on alleyopps, he doesn't have much of an offensive game. He needs hours of work on his post game which in my opinion is nonexistant. He showed little game away from the basket, but apparently, he displayed a jumpshot at his workouts and shot the ball well. So he's been working on his game. If your going to draft him, its for his defensive abilities. At least in the short term. He has the potential to be a very very good defensive player. He has great shotblocking instincts, but is also excellent at defending the pick and roll, where on more than one occasion I saw him do a show, pushing the PG well beyond the 3pt line, and still get back to block his man's shot at the basket. Even when he gets stuck on a switch against a smaller and quicker player, and gets beat off the dribble, he manages to block that players shot from the side or from behind. He's also a good physical specimen, and doesn't get pushed around in the post. He's still a work in progress, especially on the offensive side, but if you have the patience to wait and develop him, I believe the reward is quite high. I wouldn't object to seeing him in a Kings uniform.
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