Bam and Butler bring a unique partnership, will to win
Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler are still chasing their first NBA championship, but that doesn’t mean their time together as the Heat’s leading duo has been a disappointment. In fact, they’ve established themselves as one of the league’s top pairings.
Since Butler joined the Heat to team up with Adebayo prior to the 2019-20 season, the Heat has recorded an NBA-high 38 playoff wins in the past four seasons. That four-year run has included three appearances in the Eastern Conference finals and two appearances in the NBA Finals, falling just short of the title each time.
“That partnership between Jimmy and Bam is as good as any duo in this league,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said Wednesday on exit interview day, just two days after team’s season ended with an NBA Finals loss in Denver. “They have a lot of playoff wins, a lot of pressure-packed wins, and there will be a lot more of those moving forward because they’re so committed to the process, to competing, to being about the right things and committing to a team, committing to something that’s bigger than yourselves, to not necessarily playing for stats but playing to win. Those things are hard to find in this league.”
Adebayo and Butler are two of the most unique stars in the league, known just as much or more for their defense than their offensive ability. So it’s not a coincidence that the Heat has posted a top-10 defensive rating in three of their four seasons together.
“I think we’re special just because we don’t get into all the analytics and the odds and this, that and the third,” Adebayo said this week. “I feel like when me and Jimmy step between those lines, it’s competition and will. That’s as simple as you can make basketball is competition and will. It’s either our will is greater than yours or vice versa.”
Adebayo, known as one of the most versatile defenders in the league in terms of scheme and switchability, has been named to the NBA’s All-Defensive Second Team for four straight seasons but has yet to make an All-NBA team.
Adebayo averaged careerhighs in minutes (34.6 per game), points (20.4 per game) and field-goal attempts (14.9 per game) in his fourth full regular season as the Heat’s starting center. He also grabbed 9.2 rebounds, dished out 3.2 assists and recorded 1.2 steals per game.
Adebayo also delivered some impressive playoff moments this season, averaging 21.8 points and 12.4 rebounds per game in the NBA Finals while also taking on the challenge of defending Denver Nuggets two-time MVP center Nikola Jokic. He also spent extended stretches as the primary defender on Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo, New York Knicks All-NBA selection Julius Randle and Boston Celtics All-NBA selection Jaylen Brown, among others, this postseason.
“I just cannot say enough about Bam’s improvement,” Spoelstra said. “Without even talking about the improvement, first and foremost, Bam is one of the preeminent winners in this league. He is about winning and what I loved about this run this year is I think the national media and the average fan were able to really understand how this guy impacts winning and he does it on both ends of the court.
“So it’s not necessarily these 50-point games, where everybody will be drawn to that and say, ‘OK, that’s obvious. That’s winning in the playoffs.’ Winning in the playoffs for Bam is taking on every big challenge. I don’t need to list the names, but it’s really hard to put into words how difficult each responsibility was to him defensively and how he was able to do a job that no one else in the league could do, literally nobody else in the league could do.”
Butler, known as a quality on-ball defender who is actually at his best as a weak-side roamer who can play the passing lanes, has been selected for an All-NBA team and the All-Defensive Second Team five times during his NBA career. He has been named an All-Star two times, an AllNBA player three times and an All-Defensive player one time in his four seasons with the Heat.
Butler just completed, arguably, the best regular season of his NBA career. He averaged 22.9 points (the second-most of his NBA career), 5.9 rebounds (fourth-most in his career), 5.3 assists (fifth-most in his career) and 1.8 steals (sixth-most in his career) per game while shooting a career-best 53.9 percent from the field in 64 games this regular season.
Despite an NBA Finals series that wasn’t up to his high standards, he still averaged a teamhigh 26.9 points and 5.9 assists per game while shooting 46.8 percent from the field in this year’s playoffs after a historically great first-round series against the Bucks. A sprained ankle he sustained in the second round appeared to limit him, as he averaged 23.7 points per game on 41.7 percent shooting from the field in the playoffs after suffering the injury but refused to use that as an excuse for his diminished production in the final weeks of the postseason.
“Do you want me to get beat up by Jimmy right now? You’re setting me up for a physical altercation?” Spoelstra said when asked if the ankle injury impacted Butler’s play in the playoffs. “No, he’s fine. There’s no excuses. There’s an honor to the way Jimmy competes at this game that you have to absolutely admire and respect. And that same honor is what this locker room was about.
“This is the partnership that we had hoped for when we first met with Jimmy, that we would be able to collectively come together and do some special things. We have not won the ultimate prize yet, but there have been a lot of wins and a lot of playoff wins.”
There’s plenty of uncertainty surrounding the Heat’s roster entering the offseason, but one thing is clear: Adebayo and Butler are a duo that the organization wants to continue to build around. Adebayo and Butler are both under contract with the Heat through the 2025-26 season.
“Throughout these playoffs, throughout these runs in the last four years, we willed our way through a lot of places, through a lot of things and a lot of people have doubted us,” Adebayo said when asked about his four seasons leading the Heat alongside Butler. “We’ve had 3 percent odds, we’ve had crazy predictions about our season and somehow we still make a way and pave a way. So I feel like that’s why it’s special because you got two guys — we’re not the most skilled and we’re not the most talented — but we have a will and a competitive nature.”
The Heat will try this offseason — just like it does most offseasons — to upgrade the roster around Adebayo and Butler in hopes of helping this duo get the one thing it hasn’t achieved yet: an NBA championship.
“That partnership between Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo is special, it’s unique,” Spoelstra said. “I put that duo up there with anybody in this league.”