With Kendrick Perkins injury in Oklahoma City, time for Steven Adams to sink or swim with Thunder

I wrote recently about Steven Adams' minutes shrinking in his first NBA season with the Oklahoma City Thunder recently.

So much for that.

The Thunder's starting center, Kendrick Perkins, recently suffered a groin injury. The long and the short of it is that Perkins will miss about six weeks all told. For Oklahoma City, it's a big injury to overcome not really not an insurmountable one. Perkins barely figures into the team's offense and as I've pointed out before, he's really not played all that well this year. The move hurts a little in terms of depth, but this isn't Kevin Durant or Russell Westbrook going down here. Enter Adams.

The former Pitt rookie will get his chance in the spotlight as the team's starting center. In his first game since the injury, Adams played 16 minutes. He scored a grand total of a point, but did pull in six rebounds while adding a block.

Oklahoma City doesn't need Adams to be spectacular and that's a good thing since he likely won't be. However, Adams rebounds and is a solid defender. If he can do those two things, it's really hard to see the Thunder missing much of anything.

Ready or not - Adams will get his shot at extended minutes and playing as the starter.

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