Steven Adams set to miss entire NBA season

Steven Adams is set to miss the entire NBA season due to injury, the Memphis Grizzles announced today.

The New Zealand basketball star has not played a regular-season game for the team since suffering the injury in January, and according to ESPN senior NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski, it said that “non-operative rehabilitation did not resolve ongoing knee instability”.

The centre is expected to make a full recovery for the 2024-25 season.

Adams, affectionately known around the NBA as “Aquaman” due to his appearance, played in two NBA preseason matches for the Grizzlies, scoring nine points and grabbing 10 rebounds in 27 total minutes.

He was originally expected to miss three to five weeks when he was first injured diving for a loose ball against the Phoenix Suns but his time on the bench has extended into the rest of the 2022-23 season.

The 30-year-old is under contract through 2024-25 after reaching a two-year, $25.2 million extension during training camp last year. Since joining the Grizzlies in 2021, Adams has averaged 7.5 points and 10.6 rebounds per game.

Adams did not compete for the Tall Blacks at the Fiba World Cup in August.

New Zealand’s most prominent basketball player has never played for the national team, and despite some early positive signs out of the Tall Blacks camp, that didn’t change at the World Cup.

Due to Adams’ injury, Tall Blacks coach Pero Cameron said that meant his chances of pulling on the black singlet ended.

“We were having good and productive conversations with Steven earlier and he was considering a lot of things; but he suffered a pretty serious knee injury. We just wish him all the best to get back on his feet and for playing again in his next NBA season.”

Before the injury, NBA legend LeBron James dubbed the Kiwi “the strongest guy in the NBA” following of the clash between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Memphis Grizzlies yesterday.

The game will be known mostly for the altercation between Fox Sports personality and NFL Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe and the Grizzlies players, but Adams had another strong outing in the 122-121 defeat.

After the game, James was asked about how the Grizzlies managed to get 39 second-chance points, the most in an NBA game in the last 25 years with Adams being a big part of that statistic.

“They have probably nine guys over 6′8, 6′9...you got two guys flying at him to contest on Ja Morant and then you’ve got the strong guy in the NBA in Steven Adams under there battling against guards, we’re probably going to lose that battle 100 out of 100 times,” James said.

“The last game they played against Cleveland they actually won on a second-chance point by Steven Adams. Because two guys went at Ja Morant’s layup and Steven Adams couldn’t be blocked out even by Evan Mobley who’s almost seven foot tall.”

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission