RWU HQ – If you’ve ever seen Oklahoma City Thunder center Steven Adams play basketball, one aspect of his
game might stick out over the others – his physicality.
But when you battle with some of the NBA’s best, like Houston’s Dwight Howard, Chicago’s Joakim Noah or Memphis’ Marc Gasol, you have to handle the punches and not be afraid to fight back. And the New Zealander isn’t afraid to fight back.
“He’s as tough as I’ve been around, any player,” Thunder head coach Scott Brooks said, according to NewsOK.com. “Every day, he just plays. The elbows, the pushes, nothing fazes him. All he cares about is eating a lot of food and playing basketball.”
But where does that physical style of play come from? His time growing up and playing rugby in New Zealand.
“Dudes in rugby in that pile, they get punched, kneed and all that,” Adams said. “They could be bleeding and stuff, they still have to go on and play.”
Adams’ dream growing up wasn’t to play center in the NBA, it was to play for his country’s most prized team.
“I actually wanted to play rugby,” Adams said, according to ThePostGame.com. “I wanted to be an All-Black. I did that until I was 13 and then switched over to basketball because rugby was tough. It was just hard.”
Considering the NBA center is now 7 feet tall, the decision to switch sports was probably the better idea. Not to mention Adams is having a pretty successful NBA career in just his second year, averaing 7.2 points and seven rebounds a game this season.
If Adams decided to stick with rugby, where do you think he’d end up now? How would a 7-foot prop do?
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