Adebayo’s ‘wow’ workout sold Heat on draft pick
A typical lottery approach to the NBA draft is to not work out against other players in advance of the selections. That proved to be another example of how Bam Adebayo is not your typical lottery pick.
Selected at No. 14 by the Miami Heat, the 6-foot-10 big man out of Kentucky insisted on such showdowns as part of the evaluation process.
“I'm a competitor. I like to compete,” he said, now on a brief break before the Heat open their summer camp Wednesday at AmericanAirlines Arena. “I never wanted to have a workout where I was by myself. I always wanted to have somebody to compete against.”
Once Adebayo got in the gym, he convinced the Heat of a seamless fit into their culture.
“It was,” coach Erik Spoelstra said, “a ‘wow’ workout.”
The session, with Adebayo in a No. 78 practice jersey came in front of the Heat coaching staff, with Heat assistant coach Juwan Howard on the court working with the prospects.
“Itwas a great workout,” Spoelstra said. “We noticed the competitiveness right away, edginess. He wanted to compete, to continue to do drills of competition even though we went about an hour and a half.
“We had already seen enough after 20 minutes. But he wanted to stay out there. He was the last one in the gym. We notice things like that. Everybody else cleared out, walked downstairs on to the next thing. And he was still working on his game and taking advantage of an open gym time. I thought it was a tremendous workout. But all it did was confirm everything our scouts had known about him.”
Adebayo said working through the ultimate NBA prep-school system at Kentucky set him up for that lasting impression.
“We all came thinking Kentucky is the blueprint for the NBA just because of our offense, our defense, how hard we had to work to get to this point,” he said of the latest Wildcats one andclass that included fellow lottery picks De’Aaron Fox and Malik Monk. “Our assistant coaches would never let us take days off.
“Just experiencing all that and getting into a workout and you see dudes from different schools get tired, it's like, ‘You didn't work when you were in college.’”
Next step
Among those who worked out Adebayo were Heat development assistants Chris Quinn and Octavio De La Grana, with shooting consultant Rob Fodor also in attendance. Now that tutelage moves to the next level, with Spoelstra confirming Adebayo's participation in the Orlando and Las Vegas summer leagues.
“We have the best development staff in the league from a coaching standpoint,” Heat president Pat Riley said. “We'll offer him everything and anything at any time. We'll go to him to give him this menu of what it takes to be world class and I know we're going to have a very cooperative player.”
Adebayo said that what some consider a concern actually is a selling point, that at 19 he still is developing.
“I've still got two years left to grow,” he said of an already imposing physique. “So I think I'm still growing, still getting bigger and still getting more athletic.”
The price
In the wake of the Heat bypassing spending their remaining $3.1 million allowance to buy a secondround pick in Thursday's NBA draft, Basketball Insiders reported Saturday that the Clippers paid the Milwaukee Bucks $2 million for the No. 48 selection, which they utilized on South Carolina swingman Sindarius Thornwell. TheNo. 38 pick ( Jordan Bell) and No. 52 pick ( Edmond Sumner) also were sold off during the second round. ...
Among those who will compete against the Heat at the upcoming Orlando Pro Summer league is guard Marcus GeorgesHunt, who spent time with the Heat last season on a 10-day contract. He will play for the Magic's summer roster.