Bam Adebayo is redefining what an NBA center can be
Collage of three photos of Bam Adebayo in a Miami Heat jersey, looking up with his hands on hips, celebrating after a play, and securing the basketball behind his shoulder.
How Adebayo found the perfect organization to let him be his best self.
By Michael Pina Dec 12, 2019, 10:05am EST
On the morning of Nov. 27, Bam Adebayo was told, from the very first moment of that night’s game against the Houston Rockets, his primary defensive assignment would be Russell Westbrook.
Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra delivered the news during the team’s shootaround at the Toyota Center. The decision was unorthodox but astute, and it didn’t take long for Adebayo’s initial shock to dissolve. He’s officially listed as a forward-center — 6’9 without sneakers, 255 pounds — with long, meddlesome arms, muscles stacked on top of muscles, and small jet engines implanted in each calf. It’s the perfect body in an era of NBA basketball defined by defensive versatility.
But still … this was Russell Westbrook, two-time scoring champ and Rottweiler who attacks the rim like its juicy brisket. For most players, the mere thought of trying to stay in front of him is traumatic. Adebayo loved everything about it.
“Your head coach having that much trust in you to guard a well-known all-star is a big, big ups to you,” he said. “Your coach telling the starting ‘center’ to guard a primetime guard like Russell Westbrook is kind of crazy.”
Questioning Spoelstra never crossed Adebayo’s mind. As a senior in high school he was regularly tapped to guard the opposing team’s best player — among them De’Aaron Fox, Lonzo Ball, and Jayson Tatum — whenever his team needed a stop. The coverages came on a possession-by-possession basis, but Adebayo held his own.
Westbrook — from the opening tip, for an entire game — was a different type of challenge. Study the box score from that night in Houston and it’s easy to think Spoelstra’s decision failed. Westbrook finished with 27 points, seven assists, and nine rebounds, and the Heat lost by nine.
But the Heat don’t regret it. When they look at Adebayo they don’t see a position, and even before they took him 14th overall in the 2017 draft they didn’t see a prospect who should be boxed into a role. Adebayo is an original, one-of-one — a jittery ball of unselfish, peerlessly athletic energy whose lone hobby is discovering new ways to dismantle traditional norms on a basketball court.
He’s a thrill ride with no precedent, both humble and supernaturally driven, supported by an organization that believes his mistakes in the short term will sprout into sustained, unwavering success. That showdown against Westbrook was a golden opportunity for Adebayo to test his potential.
“You can’t just be one of those guys where the whole league knows what you are and categorizes you as that and you accept that,” Adebayo said a few days after the Rockets game. “I want to be one of those guys who expands his zone. Kind of like what Kawhi did.”
In what has become a breakout season, Adebayo’s peak is an enticing question. Instead of tracking towards an established archetype, he may be something altogether more intriguing: an evolutionary frolic into basketball’s next frontier.
Back in July, when he first heard the Heat had included Hassan Whiteside in the four-team trade that brought Jimmy Butler to Miami, Adebayo knew he was about to take on a much bigger role. He sat down with Spoelstra several times to discuss how it would look, and in one meeting disclosed that his top personal goal was to win Most Improved Player. Chasing individual accolades doesn’t jibe with Heat culture, but in this case Adebayo’s ambition could be mutually beneficial.
The Heat had no serious doubts about Adebayo becoming a major part of their next great team—after last year’s All-Star break, he held his own in Miami’s starting lineup — but they were nonetheless unsure how he’d handle nearly 10 more minutes of playing time per game, especially as a greater focal point in opposing scouting reports.
John Calipari, Adebayo’s head coach at Kentucky, remembers a conversation he had with Heat president Pat Riley over the summer. “I need more from Bam,” Riley told him.
So far this season, the Heat couldn’t ask for more. At 22, with his first All-Defensive team around the corner, Adebayo is averaging 15.3 points, 10.5 rebounds, 4.4 assists, 1.4 steals, and 1.2 blocks per game. (He recorded his first triple-double against the Atlanta Hawks on Dec. 10.) On a per-minute basis, all those numbers are up from last season, along with his usage rate and field goal percentage. The only players in NBA history to average at least 15 points, 10 rebounds, and four assists while making more than 59 percent of their shots are Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Charles Barkley.
Adebayo also draws more fouls per game than LeBron James, Ben Simmons, and Andre Drummond, and ranks in the NBA’s top-20 in free-throw attempts, rebound rate, steals, blocks, field-goal percentage, Value Over Replacement Player, Win Shares, and several other metrics, advanced and remedial, that suggest he’s made the leap.
Adebayo’s candidacy for Most Improved Player is valid in a crowded field. More important than that, he will make the All-Star team if the Heat continue to win. Right now they’re 18-6, with the point differential of a 54-win team, per Cleaning the Glass. Adebayo never expected this type of attention so early in his career, but he’s embracing it.
“I’m a person, and everybody wants to be an all-star. Nobody wants to just be a role-player,” he said. “I’ve thought about it. But the number one goal is to keep winning, so I’m more focused on that than being an all-star, honestly.”
As one of the most impactful young bigs in the league, Adebayo’s defense is a literal game changer. In a recent overtime win against the Toronto Raptors, he wiped Pascal Siakam off the face of the Earth, holding the defending champ to zero made baskets while covering him.
Not only does Adebayo stand out as one of a select few who can actually switch 1-through-5 without embarrassing himself, but his nimble yet violent offensive skillset blurs the lines of what a center can be. He personifies positionless basketball with moves that don’t need context to make your jaw drop.
Heat point guard Goran Dragic had to stop and think when asked if Adebayo reminds him of any other player, before landing on Draymond Green.
“But Bam is bigger,” Dragic said. “He can pass, he can score, he can defend. There’s not a lot of big guys in this league who can do that.”
Aside from volcanic superstars like Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic, and Karl-Anthony Towns, nearly every starting center in today’s NBA slots into a cookie-cutter role. On offense, they’re off the ball, rebounding, rim running, setting screens, and either rolling to the basket or popping behind the three-point line. They exist to simultaneously complement and rely upon the wings and guards who have a greater impact on wins and losses. Very few have the bandwidth to handle more responsibilities, and most are glued to the paint on defense because venturing outside out of it would expose their stiff vulnerabilities.
Adebayo has no defensive weaknesses. He can rumble in from the weakside to two-hand smash a layup against the backboard, or slide on a switch to stop shifty ball-handlers before they get downhill.
“[The next time we play] Bam’s gonna try and switch on me,” childhood friend and New York Knicks point guard Dennis Smith Jr. said. “That’s all he’s gonna want to do.”
Adebayo avoids unnecessary fouls and grabs every loose ball, too. On offense, he rolls to the rim, stalks the baseline, and initiates offense from the perimeter. Despite being trapped in a center’s body, he doesn’t think, move, or act like one very often.
“He’s carving out a new position for himself,” said Brandon Clifford, Adebayo’s coach as a high school senior at High Point Christian Academy. “He’s really just kind of blossoming into the perfect basketball player.”
Adebayo is cerebral, adaptive, and can turn a basketball court into a personal bouncy castle. Last season, he would regularly challenge Heat wing Derrick Jones Jr. — whose nickname, for good reason, is Airplane Mode — to dunk contests right after the Heat finished grueling two-hour practices. “A lot of people don’t know, but Bam is as athletic as me, if not more,” Jones Jr. said. “He’s one of the most athletic people I’ve ever seen in my life.”
The physical advantages come naturally for Adebayo, but it’s his eagerness to explore their application, combined with his playmaking ability, that could turn him into a big unlike many we’ve ever seen.
There are several ways to explain Adebayo’s rise and why he has been able to distinguish himself from homogenous big men across the league. But to have that conversation, we first need to acknowledge how the Heat have encouraged Adebayo to buck convention.
Adebayo could’ve been Clint Capela, locked into a role he’d capably dominate but with a much lower ceiling. Instead, he was drafted by a franchise that thinks outside the box. It’s any prospect’s best-case scenario, the coach, roster, system, and orga
nization’s philosophical principles all fitting snugly together.
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