Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Adebayo free to experiment
Team wants rookie to be position flexible
The question was posed twice because at first it sounded as if Bam Adebayo had said, “They are letting me play three.”
Only after it was asked again did it clarify the lengths Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra might go with his position-less approach.
“They are letting me play free,” the big man drafted No. 14 out of Kentucky clarified. “They’re just like, ‘Go do you, have fun and share with your teammates.’ “
For Adebayo, recent workouts at AmericanAirlines Arena have followed the pattern similar to his time in the team’s summer camp and summer league. Just because he is a muscled (and quite possibly still growing) 6-foot-10, 245-pound specimen doesn’t mean the Heat are, to use Spoelstra’s parlance, going to put him in a box.
For the Heat, it all is part of the versatility needed to make this multidimensional roster work. When alongside Kelly Olynyk, it is possible that Adebayo winds up with the perimeter defensive assignments. When playing with James Johnson, Adebayo could find himself planted in the post. Still to be seen is whether Adebayo might even play alongside center Hassan Whiteside, which was not the case with last season’s backup center, Willie Reed.
During summer league, it was not uncommon for Adebayo to take off with bust-out dribbles after securing rebounds. That had him, at least at moments, as much “three” as “free.”
But that doesn’t mean there also hasn’t been ample big-muscle work, social media chocked full of Adebayo workouts sessions alongside Whiteside, Udonis Haslem and the rest of the Heat’s lifting crew.
“Just walking in, they took me in like I was one of their brothers for a long time,” Adebayo said during the team’s back-to-school event earlier in the week. “So it’s easy going.”
At least the relationship part. The workouts have been anything but. They have, however, opened the 20-year-old’s eyes to why Haslem remains team captain despite minimal playing time, after holding a larger role alongside Dwyane Wade and LeBron James.
“It’s not surprising because I watched the Miami Heat all the time when they won both championships with LeBron and even the one that they won with D-Wade by himself. U.D. was on all of them,” Adebayo said. “You just see all his hard work, diving on the floor, making the hard plays. It shows his passion for the game.”
Having completed the NBA’s Rookie Transition Program last week, Adebayo is continuing to soak in his Heat transition program, in advance of the Sept. 26 start of training camp.
“I look up to U.D. and Hassan and them. So they’re leading me in the right path,” he said.
With Reed having departed for a one-year contract with the Los Angeles Clippers, there will be ample opportunity during training camp and the preseason, which is why on a roster with limited turnover otherwise that Adebayo wants to enter camp as schooled as possible.
“I always stay ready,” he said. “I always prepare myself in any way, in every game. I’m just taking it bit by bit and just soaking all the information.”
Okaro White