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Seven feet of not giving a crap

-- The untold story of
Thunder center Steven
Adams
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Brian Windhorst May 3, 2016

ESPN Senior Writer

IT'S A SUNNY winter

Saturday afternoon on
the outskirts of
Oklahoma City and 7-
foot Steven Adams is towering over a clutch of
white-haired fans at Epworth Valley retirement
community. Adams has never played bingo. No
matter -- he works the room like a politician,
cracking jokes and signing autographs.

And competing.

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At one point, an octogenarian tablemate thinks

she has won. "B-6, I-22, N-40, G-57 and O-62,"
she yells.

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As it turns out, one of her numbers is just off.

The 22-year-old Adams leans in. "A bit
premature there, love," he crows in his Kiwi
accent. "But you have fine-looking offspring."
He glances at the button pinned to her chest,
showing off her three grandchildren.

By the end of the day, Adams will also be the

victor of a game of bingo "blackout" (in which
his teammate Enes Kanter cheated by playing
six cards at once), bragging of the skill required
to beat "the old people" at a game of pure
chance.

ADAMS GREW UP in Rotorua, a picturesque

city on a chain of lakes in central New Zealand.
Tourists flock there because of its scenery, its
hot springs and its geysers, which spew
sulphur and give the area a bit of a rancid
smell.

"It smells like someone farted in your face all

the time," Adams says, "but you get used to it."

Adams is the youngest of 18 children. "My

brothers bullied me so I cried a lot as a kid," he
remembers. "It was the only defense I had.
Telling them to stop wouldn't work. The crying
would bring my dad. Dad was my cavalry."

"The initiation was brutal. They

pretty much kicked the crap out of
you. I wasn't interested in that."
Steven Adams

His 6-11 father, Sid, had children with five

women -- Adams' mother is Tongan, a native of
a small island in the South Pacific. Sid was in
his 60s at the time of Steven's birth. By the
time Adams got to know him, Sid was worn
down from life and battered from a car
accident that had severely damaged his legs.

When Sid died after a long struggle with

stomach cancer, Adams stopped going to
school. He lied to his siblings. He started
hanging out with some members of a local
gang, the Mongrel Mob, though he never
officially joined.

"The initiation was brutal," he says. "They

pretty much kicked the crap out of you. I
wasn't interested in that."

ADAMS NEEDED HELP. One of his

brothers, Warren, had an idea. Steven was
about 6-5 when he was only 14, and from a
family of near-mythic athleticism. His sister
Valerie became a national hero after she won
gold medals in shot put at the 2008 and 2012
Olympics. Warren himself had played
basketball on the New Zealand national team.

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Warren called a former teammate, Kenny

McFadden. McFadden, an American who had
once suited up at Washington State under
George Raveling, had played professionally in
New Zealand. He fell for the country, and after
retiring as a player, he began to coach,
becoming influential in youth basketball
nationwide.

McFadden took a chance on the youngest

Adams. He arranged for a scholarship to Scots
College, a century-old Presbyterian school in
Wellington. The cost of tuition and boarding
from middle school through high school can
run more than $150,000.

Steven showed up in Wellington, a six-hour

drive south, in rough shape; unkempt hair
halfway down his back and wispy fuzz across
his face. His clothes were ragged, his reading
and writing skills were poor and his attitude
was worse.

"I'd never worn a tie before. I was a bushman,"

he says. "My friends now were like, 'Who's this
murderer?' It was really uncomfortable at
first."

Dress code was a tie and gaudy red jacket with

a crest, in the English tradition. On Adams'
first day, he reported to class without a pen or
paper, which had to be borrowed.

McFadden found a teacher willing to take in

Adams, clean him up and mentor him. Once
the grit, hair and fear had been washed away,
the educators found charming personality.
McFadden went to work on the basketball,
starting with 6 a.m. workouts before school,
and then another two hours after school. This
went on for years. The village of Scots College
resolved to raise Steven Adams.

"I'd never worn a tie before. I was a

bushman. My friends now were
like, 'Who's this murderer?' It was
really uncomfortable at first."
Steven Adams, on first arriving at
Scots College in Wellington, New
Zealand

"I just got addicted to getting better," Adams

says. "My coach gave me a goal to get a tip
dunk in a game -- you know a putback dunk off
a rebound. I had never done that. He told me
that he'd get me a pair of new shoes if I did it. I
just kept trying. I couldn't get it, couldn't get it,
couldn't get it. It took me a year or so. Finally
one game, I got it. It happened. I was really
pumped, I felt really good. When it finally
happened, I didn't care about the shoes. From
there, I got addicted to that success, that
accomplishment."

BY THE TIME he was 16, Adams was close to

6-10, developing rapidly as a player and getting
attention beyond New Zealand. McFadden sent
off video and used connections that got Adams
an invitation to Adidas Nations, a camp for
international prospects in Los Angeles. It was
Adams' first trip overseas.

"He's a bit of a miracle because there's not

much basketball there," says Mark Bryant, a
Thunder assistant coach who has gone to New
Zealand several times to work camps with
Adams. "Where he came from they're tough,
because they all play rugby, but if he didn't
have Kenny, there was no way he'd be where he
is today. He found him, he taught him and he
got him seen."

When Adams arrived in California, he played

with the Latin American team, because there
were no other players from his region. That all
might have seemed disorienting to Adams, but
after his experience being dropped into the
strange world of Scots College, nothing seemed
strange anymore.

"What happened to me at Scots is they lit the

spark for me," Adams says. "My eyes were
opened there. Now, I'm interested in
anything."

Adams ended up playing a season at

Pittsburgh, a connection established because
coach Jamie Dixon had played professionally
in New Zealand. The 7-foot center was drafted
in the lottery by the Thunder, a pick the team
acquired as part of the James Harden trade.
Fair or not, that created expectations.

In 25 minutes per game this season, Adams put up a career-

high 11.4 points per game (on 61.3 percent shooting) and 9.5
rebounds. Eric Gay/AP Images

He has developed a reputation for being

unshakable. This was the case from nearly day
one. "He's just so high energy, so wide-eyed,"
teammate Nick Collison says. "He's not easily
impressed, he doesn't take things too seriously.
I think that's the culture from his background.
He's all about, 'Get over yourself.' He didn't
grow up with the dream to play in the NBA,
and it shows."

His first NBA training camp, as a rookie in

2013, featured many days of feisty drills and
scrimmaging with veterans. Eventually, the
legendarily tough Kendrick Perkins drilled an
elbow into Adams' chest, turned and growled
at him.

"I'm the only silverback!" Perkins said with his

trademark scowl.

Adams laughed. "You saw right away this kid

just came to work," Perkins says. "I don't think
he even knew who a lot of the opponents were
when he came into the league. He wasn't
starstruck. He didn't give a s---."

That's true. Adams knew virtually nothing

about the NBA when he arrived. One of his
brothers had an old video game he played as a
kid. In the game, the best player was Peja
Stojakovic, Adams says. And his brother had a
poster of Larry Bird. So when Adams started
playing, it was a lot of shrugging and no
deference, which unnerved a long list of
opponents.

During his rookie season, Nate Robinson

punched him in the stomach. Vince Carter
elbowed him in the side of the head. Jordan
Hamilton punched him in the shoulder. Larry
Sanders elbowed him in the neck. Zach
Randolph punched him in the jaw, a move that
got Randolph suspended for Game 7 of the
Thunder's first-round playoff series with the
Memphis Grizzlies two years ago.

Last season, the Los Angeles Lakers' Nick

Young was ejected for throwing a forearm into
Adams' throat. Young said Adams was a
"sneaky dirty player" and that his play had
caused Young to "lose my mind a little bit, [I]
checked into the crazy house."

"It's mostly because I wanted to listen to the

coach," Adams says. "My coach Scotty Brooks
yelled at me early that I shouldn't react because
reacting hurts my team. So it hurts, but I don't
want to hurt my team."

Bryant, Adams' big-man coach, laughs at the

thought of it.

"Steven doesn't react. It's those guys who

react," he says. "Most of the time Steven
started it."

Adams ranked 369th in total real plus-minus in 2013-14, his

rookie season. This year: 34th overall -- including 12th in
defensive RPM. Sue Ogrocki/AP Images

ADAMS HAS EVOLVED. He doesn't scrap

with opponents as much anymore -- they have
the book on him now. And he's getting the
book on them. Adams has learned his peers'
names and tendencies. Now he studies Tim
Duncan and Marc Gasol. Adams' minutes and
his production per minute have crept up: This
season, he finished the regular season with the
12th-best defensive real plus-minus in the
league, and a top-50 overall rating.

"All of it is very slow. It's going to get a long

time to get things to where I want them,"
Adams says. "I'm way off but I'm striving. I'm
used to long journeys."

Further evidence of his maturation: Adams

sponsors camps across New Zealand that last
year involved more than 1,000 kids. He made a
significant investment endowing several
scholarships for promising young players at
Scots College. And one of his nieces is showing
major potential and hopes to play in college in
the U.S.

HUNGRY: THAT'S THE word. Adams loves

food, especially ethnic foods from across the
world. Once withdrawn and parochial, he now
spends some of every offseason traveling. And
eating.

"He'll eat all day long," Collison says. "Earlier

this year, we were in Miami. Some of us went
to Whole Foods after practice. He went from
Whole Foods to an Italian restaurant to a sushi
place and he was ready for dinner later. When
we go to dinner, he'll order an appetizer, two
entrees at least, whatever he wants to try. You
always heard about Michael Phelps and his
unlimited calories. I never understood it -- but
that's what Steven is like."

"I'll try anything," Adams says, "but the pig

testicles in Taiwan were a little much. Eh, it
wasn't half bad. There was this one dish I had
there, the translations is, 'The Monk Jumps
over the Fence.' It's a fish dish with all these
spices. It was beautiful man, it was poetry. It
had a whole story."

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Williams injured in win over
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Marcus Smart goes down with knee injury

(0:36)

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ESPN News Services 12:47 AM WAT

TORONTO -- Boston guard Marcus Smart and

center Robert Williams both missed the second
half of the Celtics' 106-104 win at Toronto on
Saturday because of injuries.

Smart injured his right ankle in the final

minute of the first half and had to be helped to
the locker room.

Williams stayed in the game after teammate

Jaylen Brown collided with his left knee in the
opening quarter, but he did not return for the
second half because the knee was
hyperextended. Williams had left knee surgery
last March but returned in the playoffs.

Boston coach Joe Mazzulla said after the win

that Williams' latest injury was "nothing
serious," adding that X-rays on Smart's ankle
revealed no structural damage.

Toronto led 57-50 at the break, but Boston

rallied to extend the team's win streak to nine
games.

"It says a lot about our team," Boston coach

Joe Mazzulla said of the short-handed victory.
"In the beginning of the game, you could
obviously feel that we just didn't have the juice.
We just kept playing. We never wavered, we
made great plays. Guys did a great job
managing the game."

The Celtics were already without leading scorer

Jayson Tatum, who sat because of a sore left
wrist. Tatum is averaging 31.2 points, the
third-highest total in the league, and a career-
high 8.5 rebounds.

The Associated Press contributed to this

report.

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