With his undeniable chemistry with Russell Westbrook, there are many that believe that Steven Adams is one of the keys to victory for the Thunder.

Truth be told, it would be hard to convince anyone that watches the team regularly otherwise. Adams works hard on every play, is a master of offensive rebounding and has little trouble switching out on smaller and nimbler players on pick-and-rolls.

He also shoots an insanely high percentage from the field and overall, doesn’t overestimate himself or his abilities.

One could make the case that he’s one of the more effective centers in the entire league.

Still, the numbers tell an interesting story. As difficult as it might be to believe (and it’s even more difficult to explain), the Thunder rank as a better defensive team when Adams isn’t on the floor. At least, that’s what numbers say.

As a team, the Thunder yield 6.5 less points per 100 possessions when Adams isn’t on the floor. He’s missed six games this season and the Thunder have gone 4-1 in those contests.

While it should be pointed out that those wins came over the Nuggets, Bulls, Mavericks and Clippers (not exactly the best competition), Dakari Johnson got the start in those contests and did provide the team with good minutes. Still, Jerami Grant, Patrick Patterson and Josh Huestis seemed to each get some additional minutes, as well.

At a high level, the suggestion is that the Thunder may be better served by playing “small” more often.

The other important thing to mention is that the team’s overall defensive rating improving doesn’t appear to be something that’s being skewed by one player’s rating increasing or decreasing tremendously.

The points yielded by the team when Patrick Patterson is on the floor and Steven Adams isn’t increases tremendously, but literally every other player on the team sees their defensive rating improve when they are on the floor without Adams.

This would certainly qualify as one of those “things that make you go hmm…”