25-under-25: Bam Adebayo at No. 4

The Miami Heat have championship aspirations and the versatile excellence of Bam Adebayo is the foundation on which they rest.

In the third quarter of a January game against the Raptors, Bam Adebayo brought the ball up the court to initiate the offense. It was not necessarily standard for Adebayo, the team’s center, to lead the offensive attack like this, but it was also far from unprecedented by this point. He was met by OG Anunoby who guarded Bam on the perimeter as he looked up, trying to figure out his next move. Jimmy Butler cut to the paint, but Bam did not have a clear lane to pass him the ball so he kept dribbling, waiting for another opportunity to present itself.

A moment later, Duncan Robinson came to set a pick on Anunoby with Fred VanVleet trailing him. VanVleet stayed with Robinson as Anunoby struggled to get around Robinson’s pick, but Bam’s otherwise free lane to the basket was cut off by Serge Ibaka. Yet Adebayo, as he dribbled towards the hoop, brilliantly and convincingly faked a pass to Meyers Leonard who was all alone on the perimeter. Ibaka fell hard for it and by the time he looked back at Adebayo, he was already in mid-air, about to release a finger-roll that would soon softly fall through the net. In isolation, it was nothing more than a simple, well-executed pick-and-roll, but it also was a prime showcase of one of the league’s best players, displaying just what makes him such a phenomenal talent at such a young age.

Bam Adebayo was not supposed to become a star. It’s easy now to look back at his lone year at Kentucky and his first two years with the Miami Heat and see the seeds of greatness that blossomed last season, but at the time, while they certainly felt like promising signs, few could have imagined just how promising they ended up being.

His first two seasons, Adebayo looked like a solid big man, mostly coming off the bench for a decent, but middling Heat team. He shot well and played solid defense, but only started 37 games. Twenty-two of those came after the 2019 All-Star Break when he replaced Hassan Whiteside whose inconsistency was becoming more exhausting with each passing game. In those games, he averaged 12 points, 9 rebounds, and a block and a steal each while shooting nearly 60 percent from the field. He still did not look like a star in the making, but it turned out to be an audition he passed since it emboldened the Heat to part with Whiteside in the trade that brought them Jimmy Butler. Last season, when he moved into the starting lineup full-time, it became clear just what a great player Adebayo could become and, in fact, already was.

What makes Bam Adebayo such a special building block for the Heat?

Adebayo, while a bit of an unconventional big man, is not a Unicorn. He is not someone who is redefining what it means to be a great NBA center, though he is expanding and refining that definition. He already checks the classic boxes that his predecessors of past decades defined such as an ability to score in the post, defend the rim, and block shots. Yet he can also do much more than that, showcasing a versatility on both sides of the ball that, even in this age of flexibility, stands out. Adebayo can defend anyone on the court, stymying opponents with a combination of size, strength, and speed that few in the league can match. He can also pass the ball well, finding the open man as they cut to the hoop or stand on the perimeter waiting for a catch-and-shoot opportunity as the defense collapses upon Bam. Apart from Nikola Jokic, no center averaged more assists per game than Bam and while his court vision is not as unbelievable as Jokic’s, it’s far more than serviceable, especially when compared to his contemporaries.

Bam plays with a sense of unflappability that can make him seem almost regal. It’s not that he plays without emotion, but that his emotions are in control, subsumed by a focus on the game itself. There is an efficiency to the way he plays, with no movement being wasted and every decision appearing intentional and well thought out. Take that play against the Raptors; he does not make the hasty decision to pass to a cutting Butler and the fake pass he does make to fool Ibaka, while flashy in a vacuum, is pure pragmatism in context, the best and simplest way to get an easy bucket.

While Jimmy Butler may be the player on the Heat who most fully embodies what it means to be a superstar — the big personality, the taking over of games, the clutch baskets –Adebayo often looked like Miami’s best player last season. And if not necessarily the best, then at least the most important. While the Heat may not have needed Adebayo to defeat the Bucks in light of how thoroughly they dismantled Milwaukee, watching those games, it’s hard to argue that he was not the best and most important player for Miami that series. He averaged 17, 12, and 4 while shooting 60 percent from the field and finding new ways to frustrate Giannis Antetokounmpo on seemingly every possession. If Butler is the player who will allow the Heat to contend for titles in the present, then Bam is the one who can make that possible in the years after Butler’s prime has passed.

This season, Bam Adebayo will not be able to surprise anyone by being a star, by throwing down lobs on one end and playing great defense on the other. However, at just 23 years old, it is entirely possible that Adebayo will develop and expand his game for years to come. But even if he doesn’t, he has already established himself as one of the best young players in the game and one of its best big men, regardless of age. Though if Bam is able to take that next step, in light of how good the Heat looked throughout the postseason on their way to the NBA Finals, it promises to be terrifying not only for the rest of the Eastern Conference, but for the league as a whole.