Should you have a sophomore crush on Jordan Adams?

In 258 minutes across the regular season and playoffs last season, Adams didn’t really acquaint himself with the NBA at large. There was no singular moment that separated him from other players, and a stocky 6’5″ guard doesn’t capture the imagination in a league of 6’8″ condors. He mustered just a .407 field goal percentage, and better watch that body fat percentage too. Around this time in a Grizzlies draftee’s career is when they’d get written off and maybe even cut from the team. This is a path that has already been walked by the likes of Xavier Henry, DeMarre Carroll and Tony Wroten.

But Adams is no retread. He’s fresh territory for the Grizzlies, or at the least, the result of integrating a new perspective to change the status quo. Draft after draft, Wallace was turning up empty, and it became clear that change was needed. With Hollinger’s presence, analytics became a vessel for optimism.

Hollinger’s player efficiency rating metric is a bit outdated, but under the thinking that he provides the Grizzlies a derived stat internally, it’s worth pointing out Adams finished his final year of college with a superb 28.3 PER. Kevin Pelton, hired as ESPN’s analytics writer shortly after Hollinger left for the Grizzlies, ranked Adams fifth on his WARP-based pre-draft big board ($). From his college background, he could force his way to the line, made free throws with a percentage in the mid-80s and posted an elite steal rate as UCLA’s all-time leader in steals. There’s less to draw out of the early returns from Adams’ NBA career, but going 10-for-25 on threes and notching 16 steals over his rookie year for a per-36 mark of 2.3 looks more encouraging than fluky with him. Hope abounds here.