(Image by Ben Thomson)It's not hard to picture Steven Adams as some kind of action hero. New Zealand's heart-throb of the NBA is tall and strong and cool, and one gets the feeling that he'd be extremely capable of taking care of business should it ever need to be taken care of. In a way, it makes total sense that the charming Oklahoma City Thunder big man is now the subject of some pretty die-hard fan fiction.
Advertisement
OKC writer Lucas Dunn began his first foray into fan fiction with a series of posts dedicated to Adams' surreal adventures late last year. The leading chapters of the story are up now on his site The Numb Diaries, and while it started innocently enough with Adams and his teammates cruising along the Hauraki Gulf and knocking back stubbies, the story has progressed into somewhat of an international espionage mystery with Adams right smack in the middle.The tale revolves around the heist of New Zealand's "national jewels"—a pounamu charm that's been passed down through generations—during a glitzy charity event that Adams is attending while he's back home to run his annual basketball camps. The masked villain escapes but Adams makes it his mission to hunt them down and bring them to justice. Someone tried to rob him of his own jewels once before, he says, and it's not about to happen again.There's more chapters to come, Lucas tells VICE, but NBA fans will already see some telltale signs as to who the villains in the story could be. And who better to save the day than Steven Adams? Forget Idris Elba or Tom Hardy or whatever; the next James Bond might have been lurking in the NBA this whole time.
Lucas Dunn with a mural of the man himself in Oklahoma City. Image supplied.
VICE: Hey Lucas. There's not a lot of New Zealanders that have had fan fiction written about them before. What got you started on this idea of writing about Steven Adams?
Lucas Dunn: The idea came from him and [Oklahoma City Thunder teammate] Nick Collison particularly. They seem to have cultivated this friendship and so it was maybe about two years ago or something like that. It was in the offseason sometime during the summer and they went on a vacation to Seattle, where the Thunder used to be based out of. They were just posting all these pictures on their Instagram and Twitter of them hanging out on boats, just kind of driving around. I just started imagining it like, 'these two guys seem like they'd probably really have fun together; I wonder what it's like to hang out with them'.
Lucas Dunn: The idea came from him and [Oklahoma City Thunder teammate] Nick Collison particularly. They seem to have cultivated this friendship and so it was maybe about two years ago or something like that. It was in the offseason sometime during the summer and they went on a vacation to Seattle, where the Thunder used to be based out of. They were just posting all these pictures on their Instagram and Twitter of them hanging out on boats, just kind of driving around. I just started imagining it like, 'these two guys seem like they'd probably really have fun together; I wonder what it's like to hang out with them'.
Advertisement
You paint Steven Adams as a superhero-type character in your stories. Where did that approach come from?
He's literally just such a larger-than-life figure. I mean, the guy is massive. I work part-time at a natural foods grocery store and a lot of the team, and the people that work for the team, shop there. So I'll see him in the store pretty regularly and you can't miss him. You see him walking down the aisle; he's this giant who's almost 7 feet tall, I'm sure. He's hairy and tattooed and he's got the moustache. His whole appearance is so larger-than-life. I just imagine him in a situation like that as being someone who'd be able to take control.The third installment ended on a cliffhanger and the fourth is still on the way. Why do I get the feeling that the bad guys in the story will turn out to be the Golden State Warriors?
Yeah, you're pretty right about that. Obviously there's a lot of tension between Oklahoma City and the Golden State Warriors now after we lost to them in the Western Conference Finals last year, which was pretty heartbreaking because we had a 3-1 lead on them then the team just kind of fell apart and just couldn't really hang with them. So that was crushing. Then when Kevin Durant decided to sign with them, we were all pretty bitter about that.How do you come up with your ideas when you're writing?
Like I said, it was kind of just based on just seeing their summer travels. They would just post all these pictures of them hanging out and going to all these wild adventures. I think originally I had the idea of making it a buddy cop style thing, like Tango & Cash. I just kind of started writing with the scenario of them just on a boat together, which was based on one of the pictures they posted over the summer. I just started letting it roll. I think it's almost taken more of an international espionage-style turn than a buddy cop one. Nick Collison seems to be the more straight-laced, serious, introspective one. I added [former teammate] Cameron Payne, who I don't think really travelled with them but he's always the guy that does all these funny dances and handshakes and all of that, so he seemed like he would be a good comic relief character. I love how Cameron Payne is like the young rookie getting hazed by the vets.
Yeah, there's a little bit of hazing to it since Nick is the most veteran player on the team. He's been with the team since they've been in Oklahoma City and Cameron Payne's only been playing for two seasons now, I think. He's pretty young and fresh.Have you always been into fan fiction yourself?
This is really my first foray into it. It's never really been anything that I've read or followed much. It was almost just kind of a joke. I just put something out one night; I think Steven Adams had said something funny after a basketball game and everyone on Twitter was joking, so I was like "hey, if I write Steven Adams fan fiction, would anybody want to read it?" I got a few comments and replies back, so I was just like "alright, I'm gonna stay up, drink some beers and see what happens".The stories you've written are pretty specific when it comes to referencing New Zealand culture. How did you familiarise yourself with everything?
All of those kinds of references and the slang was just internet research. I started writing it and I wanted to make Steven Adams sound authentic, but I don't know any of the slang so I just started looking it up on different websites and finding the slang words and things like that. I hope at least to a New Zealander it came off as somewhat authentic.It really does. Any word whether Steven Adams or anyone in the OKC camp has seen any of the stories?
I've never spoken with Steven but I've seen him shopping a lot. We've got a little sandwich deli, so he goes in there a lot of times after practice and gets a couple of sandwiches. The first time that I ever saw him, it was kind of funny. He was just standing in line and he had just two large gallons of whole milk. That was all he was buying. It was just funny to me, this massive guy just buying two gallons of milk. I was like, Is he putting all this down tonight, or what?!Follow Hussein on Twitter .
He's literally just such a larger-than-life figure. I mean, the guy is massive. I work part-time at a natural foods grocery store and a lot of the team, and the people that work for the team, shop there. So I'll see him in the store pretty regularly and you can't miss him. You see him walking down the aisle; he's this giant who's almost 7 feet tall, I'm sure. He's hairy and tattooed and he's got the moustache. His whole appearance is so larger-than-life. I just imagine him in a situation like that as being someone who'd be able to take control.The third installment ended on a cliffhanger and the fourth is still on the way. Why do I get the feeling that the bad guys in the story will turn out to be the Golden State Warriors?
Yeah, you're pretty right about that. Obviously there's a lot of tension between Oklahoma City and the Golden State Warriors now after we lost to them in the Western Conference Finals last year, which was pretty heartbreaking because we had a 3-1 lead on them then the team just kind of fell apart and just couldn't really hang with them. So that was crushing. Then when Kevin Durant decided to sign with them, we were all pretty bitter about that.How do you come up with your ideas when you're writing?
Like I said, it was kind of just based on just seeing their summer travels. They would just post all these pictures of them hanging out and going to all these wild adventures. I think originally I had the idea of making it a buddy cop style thing, like Tango & Cash. I just kind of started writing with the scenario of them just on a boat together, which was based on one of the pictures they posted over the summer. I just started letting it roll. I think it's almost taken more of an international espionage-style turn than a buddy cop one. Nick Collison seems to be the more straight-laced, serious, introspective one. I added [former teammate] Cameron Payne, who I don't think really travelled with them but he's always the guy that does all these funny dances and handshakes and all of that, so he seemed like he would be a good comic relief character. I love how Cameron Payne is like the young rookie getting hazed by the vets.
Yeah, there's a little bit of hazing to it since Nick is the most veteran player on the team. He's been with the team since they've been in Oklahoma City and Cameron Payne's only been playing for two seasons now, I think. He's pretty young and fresh.Have you always been into fan fiction yourself?
This is really my first foray into it. It's never really been anything that I've read or followed much. It was almost just kind of a joke. I just put something out one night; I think Steven Adams had said something funny after a basketball game and everyone on Twitter was joking, so I was like "hey, if I write Steven Adams fan fiction, would anybody want to read it?" I got a few comments and replies back, so I was just like "alright, I'm gonna stay up, drink some beers and see what happens".The stories you've written are pretty specific when it comes to referencing New Zealand culture. How did you familiarise yourself with everything?
All of those kinds of references and the slang was just internet research. I started writing it and I wanted to make Steven Adams sound authentic, but I don't know any of the slang so I just started looking it up on different websites and finding the slang words and things like that. I hope at least to a New Zealander it came off as somewhat authentic.It really does. Any word whether Steven Adams or anyone in the OKC camp has seen any of the stories?
I've never spoken with Steven but I've seen him shopping a lot. We've got a little sandwich deli, so he goes in there a lot of times after practice and gets a couple of sandwiches. The first time that I ever saw him, it was kind of funny. He was just standing in line and he had just two large gallons of whole milk. That was all he was buying. It was just funny to me, this massive guy just buying two gallons of milk. I was like, Is he putting all this down tonight, or what?!Follow Hussein on Twitter .