Miami Heat big man Bam Adebayo seemingly doesn’t think he gets enough recognition for anchoring a Heat defense that consistently ranks among the best in the NBA, and ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith seems to agree.
Adebayo made headlines with recent comments on the topic.
“A point guard (Marcus Smart) got it over me, a center (Rudy Gobert) got it over me, a power forward (Jaren Jackson Jr.) has gotten it over me,” Adebayo told Yahoo! Sports regarding the Defensive Player of the Year award. “The goalposts move for me, in certain degrees. It’s me and a lot of undrafted dudes, and we still have a top-five defense.
“These other guys have All-NBA dudes (around them). Some of it is, they don’t really care about us and that’s fine. I think they should pay attention to consistency because being top five DPOY, I think I have the longest streak of All-Defensive teams, so the goalposts move for me.”
On Friday, Smith responded.
Adebayo has been one of the NBA’s elite defensive players for quite some time now. He has finished in the top five in Defensive Player of the Year voting in each of the last five seasons and ended up placing third behind only Rudy Gobert and Victor Wembanyama for last season’s award.
The 26-year-old has also made five consecutive appearances on an All-Defensive team and earned the first All-Defensive First Team nod of his career in the 2023-24 campaign for his contributions on the less glamorous end of the floor.
The Heat weren’t a top team in the Eastern Conference during the 2023-24 regular season by any stretch, considering the squad had to win its way through the play-in tournament in order to qualify for the playoffs. But it’s hard to pin Miami’s inconsistent regular season on the team’s defense.
After all, the Heat ended up with the fifth-best defensive rating of any team in the league during the regular season at 111.5. Three of the four teams that boasted superior defensive ratings — the Boston Celtics, Minnesota Timberwolves and Oklahoma City Thunder — won at least one series during the 2024 NBA Playoffs, and Boston went on to win the title.
A component of what made Miami a vaunted defensive team was its ability to limit opponents from scoring in the painted area. The Heat allowed just 46.4 points per game in the paint, which marked the third-fewest of any NBA team behind only the Timberwolves and Chicago Bulls.
And it’s arguable as to whether the Heat would have prevented scoring in the paint at the level they did if it weren’t for Adebayo and what he brings to the table as a rim protector. Adebayo averaged a team-high 0.9 blocks per game during his seventh season in Miami while also using his versatility to impact other areas of the floor on defense.