Adebayo finally fulfills dream with purchase of house for his mom
Heat All-Star center Bam Adebayo surprised his mother on her birthday with a house just days after he signed the richest contract in Heat history.
During Bam Adebayo’s session with reporters on Friday, he hinted at a surprise that was coming his mother’s way.
“I got a secret present for her for Christmas, so she’ll get a kick out of that,” Adebayo said with a smile.
It turns out it was a Christmas gift and a birthday gift wrapped in one.
The Heat’s All-Star center surprised his mother, Marilyn Blount, with a new house in Miami on her 56th birthday Sunday.
“The smile she had on her face was priceless,” Adebayo said after Monday’s practice at AmericanAirlines Arena during a Zoom call with reporters. “And just seeing that woman go through what she went through and finally getting a break and being able to say, like, ‘This is mine and I own this,’ that was a big thing for me. My mom’s never owned anything. I always wanted her
to own something, that she could say, ‘This is mine’ and feel good about it. I wanted her to have 10 toes down, this is my house.”
Adebayo, 23, said Sunday’s moment was one he has worked to make a reality since he was a freshman in high school.
“At that point you start thinking for yourself, you start realizing different stuff,” Adebayo said. “Until that point in high school, I didn’t realize that we didn’t own the house that we lived in. So realizing that, and my mom never had anything that she called her home. So growing up and being able to do something different with basketball and be a special player, that was something I’ve always had in my mind, I always wanted to do, and just having an opportunity to do it for my mom is an incredible experience.”
Adebayo compared the minutes leading up to
Sunday’s surprise to his first NBA Finals game last season because “I was so nervous, because I never really gave her a gift like that.”
The life-changing gift came just days after Adebayo signed a life-changing contract, the richest in Heat history. His newly signed deal is a five-year, $163 million contract extension that begins in the 2021-22 season and runs through the 2025-26 season, and could grow to as much as $195 million.
Adebayo’s connection with his mother is welldocumented. As a single mother working at the
Acre Station Meat Farm, Blount raised Adebayo in a single-wide trailer home in Little Washington, North Carolina.
“My whole takeaway was seeing a 56-year-old lady that went through struggles and it finally paid off,” Adebayo said, wearing a gold necklace featuring a pendant of his mother holding him as a child. “That’s the biggest thing. And that’s not even got anything to do with me. Just her, the way she went from graduating high school to getting her own job, moving out straight out of high school and kind of just going on her own and trying to figure it out, that’s different. A lot of people can’t do that. A lot of people won’t do that.
“And then to raise a son by yourself and not having a car or not having the right income to make sure he can do all the things that he wants to do, but make him feel comfortable, is amazing. That’s just a token of my appreciation. I mean, she’s always wanted [her own house], so I finally got to give it to her.”
Heat wing Jimmy Butler elaborated on Adebayo’s connection with his mother: “That’s his why. I think their bond is the best. I think that the way that he plays, the passion, all of that, it comes from somewhere. And it comes from her. I love that. He deserves that. She deserves that.”
For the first three seasons of Adebayo’s NBA career, he lived in the same downtown Miami condominium building as his mother but on a different floor.
“It ain’t going to be a bad adjustment, because I’ve got a bed in the house,” Adebayo said of now having to drive to visit his mom. “So at the end of the day, if I want to go stay with my mom, it ain’t a problem. That’s not a problem. She’s getting accustomed to the crib. She’s figuring it out as she goes along, just figuring out the new adjustments of her TVs. She’s just having a ball.”
Adebayo noted that the gift came together quickly, with an empty house turning into his mother’s new home in just five days. He credited his inner circle for doing “most of the heavy lifting” and getting the house ready in time for Blount’s birthday.
Adebayo did have some input in preparing the house, though. He made sure there was a framed photo of the trailer home he grew up in with his mother on one of the walls.
“I wanted it by the front of the door. I wanted everybody to see where we actually came from,” Adebayo said. “That doesn’t matter who walks in. You’re always going to see the picture. So my whole goal was putting it there just so everybody could see where we actually come from and how I was raised and what I went through.”
Adebayo’s gift has even inspired at least one member of the Heat organization to possibly improve his gift-giving skills.
“He’s making us all look bad,” coach Erik Spoelstra joked. “Now I’m feeling guilty. I have a great relationship with my mom, and I haven’t done anything like that. But I will now. I watched that, and that definitely was inspiring. It’s a beautiful relationship. That just gives you a little bit of an indication behind the curtain of who Bam is a person, as a son and what really matters to him in this life.”