Drafted No. 14 in 2017, Bam Adebayo has grown from a single-digit scorer his first two seasons to an All-Star, someone capable of scoring 19 a game or dropping 31 on the road in the Eastern Conference Finals and a three-time All-Defensive Second Team honoree. But every year more is asked of him, so we sat down with Adebayo to find out what he’s asking of himself and what kind of player he wants to become – not just the player everyone thinks he should be.
What follows is a conversation from Miami HEAT training camp in The Bahamas.
Couper Moorhead: Now that you’ve had some time to sit with the Boston series and reflect on how it played out, what has stuck with you as a takeaway for you personally?
Bam Adebayo: That I can lead my team to victory. I’ve done that before. I’ve seen it, I’ve done it, I’ve lived it. The biggest thing about it is being more consistent with that type of mentality. Putting myself in position to help my teammates win. Once you tally all of that through an 82-game season, you get into the playoffs and it’s second nature.
So that Game 3 in Boston especially has lingered in your mind?
Yeah, just locking into that mentality. Game 7 also. Just having that mentality of going, going, going. There is no stopping me. It’s my will. Putting that mindset forward, it helps my teammates out and it helps the team.
In many of your big scoring games, as far as field-goal attempts, Brooklyn a couple years ago, Jimmy not playing in the second half of Game 3, when guys are out has that pushed you to do things that may not always come naturally?
Whenever our main guys go out, especially when it’s Jimmy, the next person they look at is me. Being that example and knowing I can be that example all the time. I’m just trying to be more consistent in that regard.
It’s felt like for years everyone, fair or not, has been after you to be this guy. Telling you to be more aggressive. And nobody has ever really asked you if you wanted to be more aggressive or if it even comes naturally to you. Has it ever felt like you’re trying to force this?
No, but I just feel like people who don’t know basketball can’t say nothing to me, so I don’t listen to them anyway.
But it is loud.
Oh, 100 percent. But if you’ve never been out there going up and down the court, you can’t tell me what I need to do or what I can’t do. It makes no sense. I block it out. I’m focused on my team. The 15 and the coaches.
When you talk about locking into that mentality, that aggressive mentality, what does that look like to you?
Just listening to UD and Jimmy and watching film, you get the sense of how you can manipulate the game. Everybody just thinks it’s coming down and shooting shots. Nah. I’m going to manipulate the game. So then people will say, ‘How did he get 25 and 10?’ because it doesn’t look like it. I feel like that’s the best way to do it because then nobody can scout it because it’s random.
In the past, and please tell me if this is wrong, but watching you there has sometimes been a toggle. There’s you trying to get your shots and then there’s the natural playmaker Bam. Do you feel like you’re now slowly putting those two modes of you together so you can be both within a single possession?
Yeah. Putting those together. That’s the part of my growth, that’s my summer. You get time to reflect, look back, evaluate and embrace the good and the bad of the past season. For me, I did pass up on a lot of shots. But that was just me in the mindset of trying to get my team moving the ball when we’re too stagnant. You hear it in practice enough, you’re like, ‘Alright, let me just buy in to what our coaches want us to do which is move the ball.’ Just mixing that in and seeing myself be the best version of me and I feel like I can do that.
Much of the time, at least in playoff games with detailed schemes but sometimes in the regular season, when you, and the same is often true of Jimmy, when you go off you’re in some way or another being single covered because the defense is so worried about the shooters. Is the greatest leap possible for you becoming a guy who draws consistent double teams, changing the complexion of this team’s offense?
My goal is just to be one of those players who you just have to respect. *snaps fingers* You have to respect everything he does off the catch. He’s coming up the court you have to have an eye on him. My goal is to just be one of those guys who is random. My first three buckets might be offensive rebound putbacks, and then the next two might be trail threes, the next two might be elbow jumpers. One might be a lob. You add that all together and it’s up to 20 points. Manipulating the game to a sense where it looks random.
You mention those threes. Whether you want to take those or not, that’s best left up to you, but what is interesting is what level do you think you would have to get to in order for teams to respect you as a shooter? To close out hard on you?
It’s going to come a time when it’s going to have to change. If you’re going to let me shoot and I’m going to make them, you’re going to have to respect it. Obviously, the word starts to get out, the snowball effect.
It takes some time.
Right. So he makes two. He makes two. He makes two [again]. So teams [start to say], ‘Alright, he’s a sticker from the top of the key.’ Then they close that out. Now I’m in the corner, ‘He’s a sticker in the corner.’ It’s growth in my game because if you can’t shoot nobody is going to respect that, obviously. But when you start making a couple, dudes are going to start thinking in the back of their minds, ‘He can make this shot now.’
Years ago we talked at your first Summer League about your role models and you brought up Kevin Garnett, who you’ve mentioned many times since then. There’s two different version of KG though, right? There’s Minnesota KG and there’s Boston KG. The way you play here feels a lot more like Boston KG because he had so much more talent around him. He didn’t have to take 18-20 shots a game. Now that you’re established in the league, do you feel like you’ve hit that KG level as far as your impact on the game.
Impact on the game, for sure. Older KG, because he won. Younger KG, he had chances but he was willing his team taking 27-28 shots . . . and that was somewhat because he didn’t have enough talent. I’m trying to be a mix of young KG with that ambition, that grind, that grit, and then the older KG in terms of impacting winning, pushing your teammates to the W and raising that trophy and yelling ‘Anything is possible.’ I feel like I can be both in one.
The conversation of whether you’re a four or a five always feels reminiscent of Tim Duncan, who is either a center or quote-unquote the Greatest Power Forward of All-Time. Of course everything is positionless now, but in the context of the history of the game do you feel like you can go either way in that discussion? Can you even do that in the modern era?
In the modern era it’s really positionless. Me and Giannis Antetokounmpo could both [be playing] center. But he has Brook Lopez. If he didn’t have Lopez he would technically be a center.
When they had P.J. Tucker he often was, same as you last year.
Exactly. It just varies. It’s positionless at this point in the modern NBA.
Why does Defensive Player of the Year seem to matter to you so much?
Just because I came into the league as a defensive guy. That’s how I got onto the court. That’s how I made my name. It started with that first clip of me defending Steph [Curry] and it just took off from there. To the point where Spo would put me on the primary scorer – one game he would say, ‘We’re playing Houston, you’re starting on Russell [Westbrook]’. Next game in L.A. he’d put me on Kawhi Leonard or PG [Paul George]. It was just building that trust to where I could, in my mind, be Defensive Player of the Year. In my mind, I’ve proved that.
The argument last year [when Marcus Smart won the award] was that giving it to a guard meant giving it to someone who actually guarded all positions. So you could certainly say the argument for the guy who eventually won it applied the same to you?
I feel like I’m damn near the only guy. Me, and I give Draymond [Green] and probably Giannis, three guys who can literally guard 1-through-5 and be effective. Switch on to a Kyrie. Switch onto KD. Switch onto Joel Embiid. The thing about guards winning it is they don’t be down there. They don’t be in that semi-circle.
They might be, but they’re taking charges or going for swipes.
Exactly. It’s whatever at this point.
You don’t mean that.
I just mean from a politics standpoint. I’m going to always go for the award. I’m never going to give up on anything that I set my mind to. It’s set in stone. Listen, the man next to me [Adebayo nods his head toward Udonis Haslem, who is standing about 10 feet away] never got any credit for how great he was on defense.
Haslem, overhearing this while looking at his phone: “That is true.”
You know what I’m saying? The man next to me is guarding Dirk [Nowitzki] in the Finals and giving him problems and never getting any recognition from that.
Haslem, nodding, still looking at his phone: “That’s a very good point.”
That’s the underdog mentality. From my point of view, I’m going to make them watch me. You have to see me. When we get on these National Television games, that’s the point of having them. You want to see young talent.
That takes us to how you think you can win it. Often, at least perception wise when it comes to voters, the way to win anything once you’re really in the conversation is to find that next level to make everyone around the country see you as the deserving winner. So what do you think is the next defensive level you can hit?
I thought it was when I was guarding point guards…
You’ve been doing that since your rookie year. For other people that might be normal for you.
Exactly, but that’s the thing. It’s extraordinary because nobody else is doing it. You don’t see a lot of guys, they’ll switch, they’ll guard the guard, then you throw the lob and they run back and get the block. That’s not normal. It’s just because I’m god gifted and he’s blessed me with this ability to do it every so often and make it look easy. But my goal is to win it. One of these days [they’re] going to look and be like well, ‘He’s been doing this over here for far too long, this is your chance now.’
Like an honorary career Academy Award?
That’s right. I don’t want it honorary. Nah. Imma win this s***. Last year they said it was because of my missed games. But if you look at the stats. My stats are up there with everyone else. I missed X amount of games but my stats are damn near everyone else’s, and you’re going to tell me I can’t win it? And then I’m not a finalist, or First Team [All Defense]? *Adebayo waves his hand*
Before we go, at the end of this year, what is a successful season for you? We know what the team wants to do, but what are your personal goals?
In terms of accolades?
However you want to define it.
DPOY. All-Star. All-NBA. I feel like I have that type of ability, that type of blessed talent to do that in a season. It’s not going to be easy. Because nobody is watching us. Nobody wants to talk about us.
You do have some national TV games this year.
Exactly, so we have more nationally televised games now. The only way is up.