Bam Adebayo agrees to max contract extension with Heat. What it means for Adebayo, the team
Just a few hours after Bam Adebayo agreed to the richest contract in Miami Heat history, he stood in the middle of Charles Hadley Park in Liberty City and helped deliver meals to more than 1,500 people on Tuesday evening.
It was a productive day for Adebayo.
The All-Star center agreed to a five-year, $163 million contract extension with the Heat that could be worth as much as $195 million on Tuesday afternoon, his agent Alex Saratsis told the Miami Herald. Then Adebayo went out and hosted his third annual Thanksgiving Food Drive on Tuesday evening.
“Man, it definitely takes the monkey off your back, for sure,” Adebayo said to reporters at his Thanksgiving event. “This is an accomplishment I always wanted to get. Just being able to reach this milestone, being able to generationally change my family’s life and also take care of the people around me is a big deal to me.”
The life-changing contract also means Adebayo’s mother, Marilyn Blount, is taken care of, which is more important to Adebayo than almost anything. As a single mother working at the Acre Station Meat Farm, Blount raised Adebayo in a single-wide trailer home in Little Washington, North Carolina.
“I’ve seen her struggle for 18 years,” Adebayo said, wearing a gold necklace featuring a pendant of his mother holding him as a child. “To know that she’s set for life is a real stress reliever for me. I’m pretty sure she’s probably jumping up in her apartment right now. It’s just glory to God.”
There is no player option or team option included in Adebayo’s extension, according to a league source. The deal begins in the 2021-22 season and runs through the 2025-26 season, and would rise to $195 million if he’s either voted onto one of the three All-NBA teams, named the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year or MVP this upcoming season.
If the 2021-22 salary cap rises above the projected $112.4 million, the extension would also increase in value.
The Heat has until Dec. 21, the day before the start of the regular season, to sign Adebayo to an extension. Miami will easily beat that deadline, as the extension is expected to be signed in the coming days.
The move likely prevents the Heat from having the outright cap space to sign a max free agent next offseason, but the Heat can still add a star player through a sign-and-trade or a trade for a player already under contract elsewhere.
Other members of Adebayo’s 2017 NBA Draft class that have agreed to max extensions with their respective teams in recent days: Boston’s Jayson Tatum, Sacramento’s De’Aaron Fox and Utah’s Donovan Mitchell. The extensions for Tatum and Mitchell reportedly include a player option in the fifth season.
Giannis Antekounmpo, the Heat’s primary target in 2021 free agency, hasn’t said if he will accept a max extension from the Milwaukee Bucks before the Dec. 21 deadline. He would be an unrestricted free agent next summer if he rejects that offer.
There was some speculation that the Heat might ask Adebayo to hold off an extension this offseason and instead sign him to a new contract next offseason to maximize 2021 cap space. It was ultimately the Heat’s decision, but Miami did not want Adebayo to be unhappy and wanted to reward him for his dramatic improvement.
When asked if there was a conversation with the Heat about waiting until next offseason to sign his second NBA contract, Adebayo said: “No, not really. Me and [Heat president Pat Riley] met one and one, and we kind of talked through it. We both thought it was the right decision.”
“I talked to Pat a couple times,” Adebayo added. “But just knowing that it’s a done deal is great. This is a great place for me. Being in this organization, they won’t let you idle. They won’t let you get complacent. It’s a great organization for me because I’m not a person who likes to be complacent. They’re going to push you no matter what. If you got $160 million or you got 1.5, we all get treated the same and that’s what I love about this organization.”
Miami’s 2021 plan to have cap space for a max-level free agent largely depended on Adebayo not signing an extension before the December deadline.
If the Heat had chosen to bypass an Adebayo extension, he would have become a restricted free agent next offseason and Miami could have matched outside offers.
“We value Bam Adebayo,” Riley said in October when asked whether the team would ask Adebayo to remain patient on an extension, while declining to answer the question directly.
“He’s an All-Star. And he’s young. And he’s great. And we’re going to do what is in his best interests. That is what I think we have to do. And that is our approach. There hasn’t been any real discussions with anybody about anything as the season just ended a couple of weeks ago. So I think you have to let people sort of catch their breath, think about things. ... But we love Bam. He’s a cornerstone to our franchise and it would be in our best interests to make sure we do the right thing with him.”
What’s the difference between Adebayo signing his extension and waiting until next year to sign a new deal?
Adebayo’s cap hit for 2021-22 would be $15.3 million if Miami waited until next offseason to give him a new contract. His 2021-22 cap hit is expected to be at least $28.1 million with his max extension.
That difference of about $13 million is huge, because it makes it realistically impossible for Miami to sign Antetokounmpo — or another free agent such as Victor Oladipo — using cap space.
With Adebayo planning to sign a max extension this offseason, the Heat would need to trade every player on its roster except Jimmy Butler and Adebayo to have the cap room to sign Antetokounmpo outright unless the cap is well above the $112.4 million projection. The NBA has said the 2021-22 cap could be as high as $120 million, but ESPN has said $112.4 million is considered the likely number.
The likely path for the Heat to acquire Antetokounmpo or another All Star next year would be through a sign-and-trade transaction, with Miami sending players and other assets to the other team.
A source who knows Antetokounmpo well said he would be more impressed by the Heat giving Adebayo the extension now than asking Adebayo to wait a year for the purpose of making it easier for the Heat to acquire Antetokounmpo.
Adebayo and Antekounmpo are friends and share the same agent, Alex Saratsis. Adebayo said there was no direct communication with Antekounmpo before agreeing to his extension with the Heat.
“Not between me and him,” Adebayo said. “I’m pretty sure he’s calling Alex and I’m talking to Alex, so it makes sense. But I don’t know. I don’t know his intentions. I don’t know what he’s planning to do. But as you can see, a lot of people are waiting to see what [Antekounmpo’s] move is.”
While Antetokounmpo is expected to be the Heat’s top free agent target next offseason if he does not sign a supermax extension with the Bucks, the list of those who could also potentially be free agents in 2021 includes Oladipo, LeBron James, Paul George, Kawhi Leonard and Jrue Holiday, among others.
The Heat also has interest in a trade for Washington’s Bradley Beal if he becomes available; he is under contract through 2021-22 with a player option for 2022-23.
Before news surfaced Tuesday regarding Adebayo’s extension, the Heat had continued to make maximizing 2021 cap space a priority this offseason.
Miami did not commit any guaranteed salary past this upcoming season in free agency, signing players to either a two-year contract with a team option in the second season or a one-year contract. With the Heat not willing to offer more than one year of guaranteed salary, it lost free agent forward Jae Crowder to the Phoenix Suns.
By attaching a second-year team option to the contracts of Goran Dragic and Meyers Leonard — as well as Andre Iguodala’s Heat deal that was crafted last February when he was acquired via trade — Miami now has the salaries to facilitate a sign-and-trade for Antetokounmpo or perhaps Oladipo next summer even while operating without max salary cap space.
Even with Adebayo set to sign an extension, he’ll earn $5.1 million this upcoming season in the final year of his rookie deal. The benefit of signing an extension is to be locked into a guaranteed max contract in the case of a significant injury this upcoming season.
In Adebayo’s third NBA season and first as a full-time starter, he averaged career highs in points (15.9), rebounds (10.2), assists (5.1), steals (1.1), blocks (1.3) and minutes (33.6) last season on his way to earning his first All-Star Game appearance and a spot on the NBA’s All-Defensive second team. He averaged 17.8 points on 56.4 percent shooting, 10.3 rebounds and 4.4 assists in 19 games (19 starts) during the playoffs.
“Now I can go even harder,” Adebayo said, referring to the sense of security that comes with a five-year extension. “Just being able to have that monkey off your back, it’s a great feeling. Also, I get to take care of my mom. She’s my pride and joy, so I can’t wait to take care of her.”
This story was originally published November 24, 2020 at 1:55 PM.
