‘No ceiling’? Bam Adebayo shining on playoff stage, and what the Heat saw in him in 2017
It’s hard to tell, but Bam Adebayo actually felt overwhelmed at one point this postseason.
The first game of the Miami Heat’s playoff run — Game 1 against the Indiana Pacers on Aug. 18. Adebayo finished that win with 23 points, 10 rebounds, six assists and three blocks in his first career playoff start.
“I was nervous like I’m a rookie again because technically I ain’t never played big time minutes in a game like this,” said Adebayo, whose only prior NBA postseason experience came as a rookie in 2018 when he played in five first-round games off Miami’s bench. “I felt like I was going through the motions. Then once I got out there, it was like: ‘OK, we’re hooping now. Just keep your routine.’ Then we started stacking Ws and started building my confidence to get back into more of a me kind of flow. Now it’s kind of coming together.”
Takeaways from night the Heat won the East. And a look at the matchup vs. LeBron and Lakers
“Coming together” is an understatement.
The fifth-seeded Heat has posted a 12-3 record in the playoffs to exceed all outside expectations and earn a spot in the NBA Finals for the sixth time in franchise history and the first time since 2014. Game 1 of the Finals series between Miami and the Los Angeles Lakers is Wednesday at 9 p.m. on ABC.
At 23 years old in his first postseason as a starting big man, Adebayo has been one of the catalysts behind the Heat’s improbable run. It marks the first time a team seeded fifth or lower has made it to the NBA Finals since 1999, when the eighth-seeded New York Knicks represented the East in the championship series during a lockout-shortened season.
Here’s a rundown of just how dominant Adebayo has been this postseason, which has elevated his game into the national spotlight:
▪ Adebayo set a career-high with 32 points, to go with 14 rebounds and five assists in Sunday’s Game 6 East-clinching win over the Boston Celtics. He became the fourth different player in Heat history to record at least 30 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in a playoff game, joining a list that also includes LeBron James, Shaquille O’Neal and Dwyane Wade.
▪ Adebayo averaged 21.8 points on 60.8 percent shooting, 11 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 1.7 steals and one block in the East finals. He led the Heat in points, rebounds, assists and steals in the series.
▪ Adebayo has averaged 18.5 points while shooting 57.1 percent from the field and 82.4 percent from the foul line, 11.4 rebounds, 4.9 assists and 1.2 steals in 36.8 minutes this postseason.
He’s on track to becoming just the fifth player in NBA history to average at least 18 points on 55 percent shooting, 11 rebounds and four assists in a single postseason. That list also includes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Charles Barkley, and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
▪ Adebayo has posted a team-best plus/minus of plus-89 this postseason. Miami has outscored its opponent by 8.2 points per 100 possessions with Adebayo on the court in the playoffs, and has been outscored by 3.9 points when he’s on the bench.
“Bam is one of the great competitors already in this association,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “He’s going to become one of the great winners in the history just because he’s so competitive. He moves the needle in every single way. You can’t put an analytic to his game, and that’s probably why he was overlooked in college. He competes every single possession. He’s really going into a leadership role. Way beyond his years. His offensive game is just growing daily. And he wants the responsibility, and he wants the accountability, and he isn’t afraid of putting that responsibility on his shoulders.”
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ON THE FAST TRACK
In just three NBA seasons, Adebayo has gone from late lottery pick in 2017 to the best player on the court in a close-out game in the 2020 conference finals. He was selected with the No. 14 pick out of Kentucky in 2017.
With little cap space in recent seasons, the Heat needed to look elsewhere to add a star. Miami found one in the middle of the first round of the draft in Adebayo and added another via a sign-and-trade move last offseason in Jimmy Butler.
“It’s kind of amazing,” said longtime Heat executive Chet Kammerer, who was the vice president of player personnel and led Miami’s draft scouting team when Adebayo was selected. “You look back now and he was the 14th pick in the draft. If you had that draft over today. The 2017 draft today, where would you have him? I think he would be in the top three in that draft. That shows you how much he has improved right there.”
The other two names at the top of that 2017 redraft list would be Celtics forward Jayson Tatum and Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell. Adebayo, Tatum and Mitchell are the only players from the 2017 class who have already made an NBA All-Star Game.
What did the Heat see in Adebayo during the draft evaluation process?
“We really liked him because of his athleticism, his speed, his power, his work ethic, his drive, he fit the culture,” Kammerer said. “... We liked his feet. I remember we talked about how quick he was defensively and how well we’re going to be able to switch with this guy. To me, he has the best feet of anybody on our roster and he’s a center for us. That didn’t surprise us. We thought he had that ability and he has shown that. I think another area that he has been better than any of us would have imagine is passing.”
It also doesn’t hurt that Adebayo dominated his predraft workout in front of Heat brass.
Kammerer recalls how Adebayo, who was voted onto the NBA’s All-Defensive Second Team this season, fearlessly switched onto perimeter players in the workout and stayed in front of all of them.
“A lot of times you bring guys in, they will do anything so they don’t have to guard a guard,” Kammerer said. “He would call out the switch and want to guard the guards, and he did it well. There was no question at the end of that workout, that he has good feet. That was the consensus: There’s no way that this guy can’t guard people, especially bigs.”
Adebayo, who averaged 13 points and didn’t attempt a three-pointer in his lone season at Kentucky, also made 60 percent of his corner threes in a drill during the workout.
“He was telling me that he could make 60 out of 100 threes from the corner. We challenged him,” Kammerer recalls. “We said, ‘You can make 60?’ He did that day.”
There was one more thing that impressed the Heat that day.
“The third thing would be the fact of how intense he was and how he didn’t hesitate from any challenges in that setting,” Kammerer said. “You could tell he loved to compete.”
A GROWING GAME
Three years of pre-practice and post-practice work later with former Heat assistant coach Juwan Howard and current Heat assistant coach Malik Allen, Adebayo has turned into one of the best big men in the NBA. Adebayo has also been part of guard drills with the Heat, working to improve his ball-handling and passing skills.
Adebayo averaged 15.9 points, 10.2 rebounds, 5.1 assists, 1.1 steals and 1.3 blocks this regular season. He’s the eighth different player in NBA history to finish the regular season with averages of at least 15 points, 10 rebounds, five assists, one steal and one block.
Antetokounmpo, DeMarcus Cousins, Kevin Garnett, Chris Webber, Larry Bird, Bill Walton and Abdul-Jabbar are the others to do it.
“He has no ceiling. He has none,” Wade, retired Heat star and Adebayo’s former teammate, said. “I won’t put any on him either because I’ve been that young guy that a lot of people didn’t have high expectations for, but you knew he could do something. Then look what happened to my career. Bam has no ceiling at all, man. I think we all knew that Bam was a Miami guy. That’s all we knew. We knew that he was in line with the Alonzo [Mournings] and the [Udonis Haslems] of the world. Like he is that kind of talent and kind of player, with the way he approaches things. The sky is the limit, man.”
Then Wade further elaborated on just how limitless Adebayo’s potential really is.
“What he has been able to accomplish in his third year, winning the Skills Challenge as a big guy,” Wade said. “Then coming back and playing in an All-Star Game. He could have gone into the Dunk Contest if he wanted to. He has the ability to do everything. One day, he’s going to become a great outside shooter. Right now, he’s becoming a great in-the-post, face-up, midrange kind of shooter. He’s going to eventually extend it and he’s going to become a great shooter. The sky is literally the limit for him.”
Adebayo’s offensive game is already expanding. He’s 14 of 32 (43.8 percent) on midrange shots this postseason after shooting 22.3 percent from midrange in the regular season.
That improvement has helped add another layer to Adebayo’s scoring ability, making opponents pay for sagging off of him when he has the ball at the elbow.
“Obviously, I got to shoot. I know that I have to shoot,” Adebayo said. “It was just the confidence of it. I shoot the shot every day. So it wasn’t like I wasn’t aware that I could make the shot. I knew I could make the shot. It was just the confidence of doing it in the flow of the offense because I’m not the primary scorer. I’m more of the facilitator. I can’t shoot the shot every time. That’s the biggest adjustment, figuring out when to shoot it and when not to shoot it.”
Adebayo said he also recently started watching game film with Heat captain Udonis Haslem, who he has built a close relationship with. That has also helped.
“He was like, ‘Yo, we’re going to watch film,’” Adebayo revealed. “I was like, ‘Alright, cool. Whatever.’ And it was about like little stuff. Nothing major. But like little things that I could do on the court and it would get me like an easy basket or like an easy steal. It was just little stuff like that.”
THE WEEK AHEAD
Adebayo is looking forward to the days ahead. Not only is he preparing for his first NBA Finals experience, but he’ll also have his mother, Marilyn Blount, in attendance at Disney for the championship series.
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. He hasn’t seen her in more than two months after entering the NBA bubble in the middle of July.
“I am so happy to see my mom. Y’all don’t understand,” Adebayo said. “I don’t get to see her but at least I get to see her in the stands. You know, we’ve been waiting for moments like this my whole life, and all these good things that have been happening to me and now I get to be in the Finals and she gets to watch.”
Blount will be watching, and so will the rest of the world. In just three years, Adebayo has developed into one of the NBA’s brightest young stars.
“I feel like that puts a bigger target on my back,” Adebayo said of the recognition he has earned in the playoffs. “So it’s kind of like a hungry mentality, if I really think about it like that. Just because people are starting to know who I am, people are starting to learn my tendencies, get my scout. It just puts you in another zone of I want to be the best player on the court and you can’t do that without having people know who you are and people studying your tendencies.”
There’s at least one thing working in Adebayo’s favor, though. He feels like there’s no other player in the league who has his combination of skills on both ends of the court.
Adebayo goes by “Bam1of1” on social media, and he really believes he’s one of one. He’s working to prove it this postseason.
“I feel like I am,” Adebayo said simply.
