One anonymous NBA scout told Sports Illustrated‘s Anthony Pasciolla that he thinks star big man Bam Adebayo would prefer not to be Miami’s No. 1 option.
“I think Bam would rather be a Swiss Army knife,” the scout said. “I don’t know if Bam wants to do that [be the No. 1 option]. I think he’d be happy with 18, 12, and 6 type of numbers. You can see it sometimes, it’s not that he can’t be the man, it’s I don’t need to be the man.”
Adebayo debatably wasn’t even the Heat’s No. 2 option during the 2023-24 regular season. After all, he averaged the third-most points (19.3) of any player on the team behind Jimmy Butler and Tyler Herro, who both averaged 20.8 points per contest.
But Adebayo still served as one of Miami’s offensive hubs last season, and along with providing a consistent scoring punch, the former University of Kentucky star also had one of the better playmaking seasons of his NBA career so far.
The 27-year-old averaged 3.9 assists per game, which marked the third-most in any single season of his pro career. He dished out a career-high 5.4 dimes per game in the 2020-21 regular season.
Although Adebayo perhaps played third fiddle behind the likes of Butler and Herro on the offensive end during the regular season, that all changed when the 2024 NBA Playoffs rolled around. Butler missed the entirety of Miami’s stint in the playoffs with an MCL injury, and Adebayo made the most of his additional touches with the 34-year-old down for the count.
In Miami’s first-round series against the Boston Celtics, Adebayo was Miami’s best offensive player. He averaged a team-high 22.6 points per game on 49.5 percent shooting from the floor. Herro ranked second on the team in scoring during that span with 16.8 per contest, but he shot just 38.5 percent from the floor and 34.9 percent from 3-point range.
Furthermore, Adebayo was arguably Miami’s best facilitator to boot. He averaged the second-most assists per game on the team with 3.8 while committing drastically fewer turnovers — eight compared to 14 — than the assists leader in Herro, who averaged 5.4.
While the anonymous scout’s opinion suggests that Heat fans likely won’t see Adebayo become the team’s No. 1 option anytime soon, it’s entertaining to imagine what Miami could accomplish with him as the squad’s head of the snake on offense.
