Team making strong pitch for Adebayo
Defensive Player of the Year campaign is simple: ‘He’s everywhere for us’
It is not the typical Miami Heat approach, promoting a player for an NBA award, if only because it means promoting the individual over the team.
So when the Heat started doing just that last week with Bam Adebayo for Defensive Player of the Year, it clearly came without the final sign off from coach Erik Spoelstra.
“I wasn’t aware that we were doing that,” Spoelstra said.
But that doesn’t mean he isn’t a supporter of the cause, or at least of the candidacy, particularly because of how the team has come around on that end of the court.
“I think Bam’s the kind of guy that is willing to put his game out there and let it speak for itself,” said Spoelstra, with the Heat concluding a two-game home series against the Chicago Bulls on Monday night at American-Airlines Arena. “If you’re going to be considered the top defender in the league, you have to do special things and your team better have one of the top defenses in the league.
“And early on in the season, we did not. And for three months now, we’ve been building a much more consistent identity to do that.”
In promoting Adebayo for the award, the Heat noted how Adebayo leads the NBA in pickand-roll switches, not only willing to take on the resulting challenge, but that the Heat allow the fewest points per possession in the NBA
when Adebayo defends the switch in such situations.
From there, as only a team in campaign mode could/would, the Heat noted that, as of the team’s social-media posting last week, NBA All-Stars have scored only 60 points when isolated 76 times against Adebayo, with the infographic picturing Adebayo defending LeBron James.
“I think Bam is one of the most unique defenders in the league, can legit guard one through five,” Spoelstra said, “and that’s not just coach speak, that’s not fan speak, media speak. That’s legit.
“He can anchor a very reliable defense. And he can take on different challenges and he has the IQ to be able to execute multiple schemes, where it’s not just the switching scheme that people think that he is involved with. He’s able to handle more sophisticated things than just that.”
The lone Heat player to win NBA Defensive Player of the Year was center Alonzo Mourning, in 1999 and 2000.
Adebayo finished fifth in last season’s voting for Defensive Player of the Year.
“I don’t get to vote for him for Defensive Player of the Year, so I can’t say nothing about that,” said Heat guard Jimmy Butler, with the award determined by media balloting. “But I know he loves and takes the challenge of being able to guard whoever in this league. And he’s actually really good at it.
“I’m pretty sure somewhere in the statistics it says that he’s really good at it. But around here, we know that he’s really good at it.”
Butler said what Adebayo offers defensively is not as individually tangible as the team payoff provided.
“And it’s not always he’s getting a stop or a block or something like that,” Butler said. “It’s tough to be in a spot and help, and then close somebody out, and then be able to guard them.
“I think that’s what people really overlook, is how he’s everywhere for us on the defensive end of the floor, and he never complains. More than anything, he never complains and he wants that matchup.”
The latest NBA Defensive Player of the Year ladder at NBA.com has Adebayo projected third for the award behind Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert and Philadelphia 76ers guard Ben Simmons, and ahead, in the top-five rankings, of Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo and Indiana Pacers center Myles Turner.
“I think he should be considered,” Spoelstra said of Adebayo, “but we don’t have a major campaign for that. I think the main point about all these awards, if you win, I think a lot of that stuff gets taken care of.
“So we’ve got to handle that first box. We got to win.”