Paul George Says Steven Adams Once Tried to Make Himself Bleed to Get Timeout

This is his best story to date.

Steven Adams has become somewhat mythical during his time in the NBA. The New Zealand native has built a reputation for being abnormally strong and fearsomely tough during his 10-year career in the association. Naturally, this has led to plenty of hilarious stories, but this one puts them all to shame.

One of his former teammates with the Thunder, Paul George, had Grizzlies forward Jaren Jackson Jr. on his podcast, and the two exchanged stories about Adams, who is currently Jackson’s front court partner in Memphis. 

George set the scene, sharing that Oklahoma City was in a tightly contested game and a play was being reviewed, but his team had no timeouts—something they sorely needed at the time. 

“I’m looking at Steve-O [Adams], and he’s scratching his face hard as f---,” George said on Podcast P.  “I’m like, ‘Steve-O, what you doing?’ He’s like, ‘Ah mate we don’t have a timeout I’m trying to bleed.’ He was trying to bleed so we could get the refs to give us a timeout.” 

When players draw blood during an NBA game, there must be a stoppage of play to stop the bleeding for safety reasons. Both players went on to share stories of Adams shrugging off every injury he’s faced with, but hurting himself for the good of the team has to be a new level of toughness.