Heat’s Bam Adebayo on outside noise to shoot threes: ‘Just let me grow as a player’
Bam Adebayo knows there’s outside pressure for him to develop into a reliable threat from three-point range. But the Miami Heat’s starting center has already grown tired of that narrative.
“I feel like it’s annoying that people keep asking me that,” Adebayo said to the Miami Herald. “I feel like just let me grow as a player. Everybody is trying to tell somebody what to do, and a lot of people have never been in my seat and [Erik Spoelstra’s] seat. A lot of people try to tell you what you need to do, what you need to change, this, that and the third. But they’ve never been in this situation.”
Adebayo, 24, has not allowed that chatter to affect his approach early in his fifth NBA season, as the Heat (11-6) is set to continue its four-game trip on Tuesday against the Detroit Pistons (4-12) at Little Caesars Arena (7 p.m., Bally Sports Sun). He has attempted just one three-pointer in his first 14 appearances this season.
That one three-pointer came in the final seconds of Saturday’s 103-100 road loss to the Washington Wizards, as Adebayo threw up a one-handed full-court heave that somehow bounced off the back of the rim as the final buzzer sounded. So he has yet to attempt a three in the flow of the offense this season.
Utah Jazz star guard and Adebayo’s close friend Donovan Mitchell recently joked after a Nov. 6 game against the Heat: “I tell him to shoot threes. He does not listen to me.”
“I don’t know why everybody is so obsessed about that,” Spoelstra said in October when asked about Adebayo and his potential to shoot threes. “The guy is improving in every aspect. I watch him in his workouts. He can make the corner three as good as basically any of our bigs. But he has the ball in different areas.”
Adebayo has instead relied on a lot of midrange looks and opportunities around the basket to score most of his points for the second straight season, with 42.1 percent of his shot attempts coming from within the restricted area and 57.4 percent falling in the non-rim two-point shot category.
The results have been mostly positive, as Adebayo is averaging career highs in points (19.4) and rebounds (10.6) this season. He’s also averaging career highs with 13.9 shot attempts and 6.4 foul shots per game, but his shooting percentage has dropped from 57 percent last season to 50.3 percent this season while his free-throw percentage has jumped from 79.9 percent last season to a career-best 84.3 percent this season.
“I think what Bam is noticing, and Bam is really smart so he sees what the veteran players are doing,” Spoelstra said recently of Adebayo’s offensive role. “It’s what’s called for in that game or that quarter or that possession or that half, and it could change. But you have to read the game and take what’s available and be assertive, be aggressive, read the defense, make others better and still look at the basket. Those are not easy things to do out there. Jimmy [Butler] does that, Kyle [Lowry] does that as the leading guys. Bam very quickly is understanding that as well.”
What were Adebayo’s offensive goals entering the season?
“Become a better scorer. I’m doing that,” he said. “I’m a better rebounder. My assists went down because of Kyle, but it’s all good. At this point, I’m a finisher. Instead of initiating offense, I get to finish.”
Adebayo is averaging just 2.6 assists per game this season compared to 5.4 assists last season and 5.1 assists in 2019-20. With Lowry running the offense in his first season with the Heat, Adebayo is part of fewer dribble handoffs that accounted for a chunk of his assists and is instead being used in more post-up situations around the basket as a scoring threat.
“I expected it,” Adebayo said of the dip in his assists. “Because I knew that Kyle was ball dominant. He wants to get everybody involved, so you got to sacrifice. I’m not one of those players that’s not going to buy into the team. I feed off of Kyle, Kyle feeds off of me. There will be games where I’m going to have seven assists. There’s going to be a lot of games where I got two. But that’s just how it goes.”
Adebayo has shot just 7 of 45 (15.6 percent) on threes in the regular season during his NBA career. But 33 of those 45 three-point looks have come out of desperation with less than four seconds remaining on the shot clock, according to NBA tracking stats.
One day, Adebayo believes the three-point shot will be a consistent part of his game. He labeled that eventual progression as “natural growth.”
But the three-point shot is just not part of his offensive role in the Heat’s system this season.
“If I was the only player on the team,” Adebayo said, “yeah I would be hoisting threes from halfcourt because I would be the only one getting 30 shots a game.”
This story was originally published November 22, 2021 at 9:37 AM.
