A look at how Bam Adebayo has become ‘one of the heart and souls’ of the Heat
Ask center Bam Adebayo if he feels like his skill set is being maximized for the first time in his young NBA career, and he doesn’t hesitate to give his answer.
“Yeah,” Adebayo said, with the Heat (7-3) set to take on the Cavaliers on Thursday at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. “That’s not really criticism, it’s honesty. As a rookie, I didn’t get to start. I’m a big and we had somebody they depended on and invested in in front of me. So you can’t really dictate how that goes. So just learning my ways, taking my time and now it’s my time to show who I really am.”
With former Heat center Hassan Whiteside traded to the Trail Blazers this past offseason, Adebayo is now Miami’s clear-cut starting big man in his third NBA season. Adebayo, 22, has played and started in each of the Heat’s first 10 games, averaging 13.3 points on 58.4 percent shooting, 9.8 rebounds, 4.6 assists, 1.6 steals and 1.4 blocks in 31.4 minutes.
Adebayo finished Tuesday’s win over the Pistons with 18 points on 8-of-9 shooting and a season-high 14 rebounds for his fifth double-double of the season.
Entering Wednesday, Adebayo was one of only five players averaging at least 13 points, nine rebounds and four assists this season. The other names on that list: Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, Dallas’ Luka Doncic, Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony Towns and Denver’s Nikola Jokic.
Adebayo averaged eight points, 6.5 rebounds and 1.9 assists in 151 regular-season games over his first two NBA seasons.
“Coach has put the ball in my hands a lot more and making me get more assists,” Adebayo said of what the biggest difference has been this season. “It’s kind of like being the quarterback of the offense a little bit. Getting everybody involved and facilitating. Just going out there and directing the offense, and just being like a second floor general besides the point guard.”
With Adebayo averaging 4.6 assists this season, he ranks second in the league among centers in this category behind only Jokic (6.1 assists). It’s a skill the Heat scouting department and coaching staff didn’t know Adebayo had when the organization drafted him out of Kentucky with the 14th overall pick in 2017.
“We didn’t know necessarily and he had never played like that in high school or college,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “But he has a tremendous work ethic, and that part was scouted in detail. Chet [Kammerer] and the scouting department felt very clearly that Bam was a Miami Heat-type guy.
“Those kind of guys get better in our program and earn more trust to be able to do more things, and that’s what Bam has done. ... He’s receiving more play calls to be able to facilitate.”
Becoming one of the best passers at his position is a goal for Adebayo. He studied film of elite passers from around the league this past offseason, with Lakers point guard Rajon Rondo at the top of the list.
“Honestly, it was really Rondo,” Adebayo said when asked whose passing he studied. “Just him putting the ball on time, on target. Every time, it’s always precise. It’s in the hands, nobody has ever got to reach for it. LeBron [James] was a good example for me and Steph [Curry] and a little bit of Draymond [Green] at times just because he’s kind of in the same role that I have. That’s what I’m looking forward to, trying to mold my game into an all-around game.”
Defensively, Adebayo is already one of the best at his position based on the statistics.
Not only does Adebayo help anchor a Heat defense that entered Wednesday with the league’s fourth-best defensive rating, but he’s also limiting players he’s defending to 40.1 percent shooting from the field this season. That ranks third-best among centers who are defending at least 10 shots per game behind Atlanta’s Alex Len and Utah’s Rudy Gobert.
Adebayo received one second-place vote as a center for last season’s All-Defensive teams, with Gobert voted as the first-team center and Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid voted as the second-team center.
“We need to be one of the top defensive teams for him to be able to earn the recognition,” Spoelstra said when asked if Adebayo’s defense deserves more league-wide attention. “You can’t talk about guys being on the All-Defensive team unless you have a top-five defense. We’re there right now and hopefully we can maintain that. If we’re able to build that as a consistent habit, then yes I think he should be recognized because he brings a consistent effort and toughness and intensity every game. But he also brings a unique versatility.”
Still the third-youngest player on the Heat’s roster behind rookies Tyler Herro and KZ Okpala, Adebayo has plenty of room for improvement. He’s shooting just 60.9 percent from the free-throw line, and his teammates want him to be more aggressive on offense as he continues to expand that part of his game.
“We’re still expecting more improvement because of his age and because of his work ethic,” Spoelstra said. “He hasn’t changed. He still comes in every day with an approach to get better. So I anticipate that he will.
“We got a handful of them, but he’s one of the heart and souls of our team. You feel his energy, his effort, his urgency to make winning plays. That part is infectious.”
And Adebayo will admit it, getting cut from Team USA in August has served as motivation.
“It has, low key,” Adebayo said. “I feel like I deserved to be on the team. But other people got opinions. I feel like when stuff like that happens, you get a bigger chip on your shoulder than you already had.”
