Snub in 2019 motivates Adebayo to career year, Olympics team
Bam Adebayo spoke about the Heat’s offseason, the disappointment of an early playoff exit and his upcoming Olympic opportunity with Team USA.
Bam Adebayo believes he deserved to be on Team USA in 2019, but he was cut after participating in the national team’s training camp in advance of the FIBA World Cup. Two years later, he will represent the United States on the Olympic stage.
The Heat center is one of 12 players on Team USA’s roster for Tokyo this summer.
Adebayo, who turns 24 on July 18, will join Tim Hardaway, LeBron James, Alonzo Mourning and Dwyane Wade on the list of Heat players who have played for Team USA in the Olympics. With the next Olympic Games coming in 2024 in Paris and then 2028 in Los Angeles, Adebayo could end up taking part in three different Olympics by the time he’s 31 if he’s also on the national team in 2024 and 2028.
“It means you’re representing your country, your team, and the name on the back of the jersey,” Adebayo said during a Thursday afternoon appearance at Jr. Heat Summer Camp at FTX Arena. “And that’s all I can really ask for. It’s a pleasure to be able to go to the Olympics. A lot of dudes don’t get this opportunity.”
Along with Adebayo, Washington’s Bradley Beal; Phoenix’s Devin Booker; Brook
‘‘ I’M LOOKING TO DESTROY SPO’S TEAM. THAT’S WHAT WE’RE LOOKING TO DO. Bam Adebayo on playing against coach Erik Spoelstra’s team in camp
lyn’s Kevin Durant; Detroit’s Jerami Grant; Golden State’s Draymond Green; Milwaukee’s Jrue Holiday; Chicago’s Zach LaVine; Portland’s Damian Lillard; Cleveland’s Kevin Love; Milwaukee’s Khris Middleton; and Boston’s Jayson Tatum are also on the national team’s Olympic roster.
“Bam, we’ve always liked,” USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo said earlier this week. “He’s a young, athletic guy, he can run the court, he’s a shot blocker, he plays above the rim. And so, a young guy like that is very, very important. Everyone has a role, and he has a specific job to do, and I’m sure he’ll do it well.”
Team USA head coach Gregg Popovich made the decision to cut Adebayo in 2019 prior to the national team’s seventh-place finish in that year’s World Cup in favor of centers Brook Lopez, Mason Plumlee and Myles Turner. Popovich, who is also USA Basketball’s head coach for the Tokyo Olympics, told Adebayo at the time that he “wasn’t ready.”
Asked by a camper what it felt like to be cut by Team USA two years ago, Adebayo said: “It’s a different feeling being cut. It was probably a bump in the road that I needed to have. … It was probably one of those things that needed to happen for me to become an Olympian.”
Since that 2019 offseason, Adebayo has turned in the best two seasons of his NBA career. He won the Skills Challenge and played in his first NBA All-Star Game in 2020, helped lead the Heat to the NBA Finals in 2019-20 and averaged career highs in points, assists and steals this past season.
A feeling of rejection from Team USA served as a source of motivation for the past two years, and now a perceived snub will fill that void. Adebayo, who campaigned for himself in the Defensive Player of the Year race, finished fourth in the voting and still has not made an All-NBA team during his career.
“I’m always looking for something to motivate me,” Adebayo said. “And half the time, it’s [Udonis Haslem]. But when it comes to accolades like that, yeah, that does motivate me. And I have nothing to do but show it.”
Adebayo averaged 18.7 points on 57 percent shooting from the field and 79.9 percent shooting from the foul line, nine rebounds, 5.4 assists and 1.2 steals in 64 regularseason games (64 starts) this past season — his fourth in the NBA. Adebayo and Milwaukee
Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo were the only players in the NBA who averaged at least 18 points, nine rebounds, five assists, one steal and one block.
Adebayo showed off an improved midrange jumper and free-throw stroke this past season. After shooting 22.3 percent (21 of 94) on midrange attempts in 2019-20, he made 42.4 percent (72 of 170) of those shots this past regular season.
During the Heat’s disappointing first-round playoff sweep at the hands of the Bucks, Adebayo averaged 15.5 points on 45.6 percent shooting, 9.3 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 1.3 steals. With Milwaukee sagging off of Adebayo to cut off the paint, it was sometimes a challenge for him to find the right balance between being aggressive with open midrange jumpers that the Bucks gave him while still playing as one of the primary facilitators in the Heat’s offense.
Adebayo shot 3 of 10 on midrange jumpers in the series and he made just 9 of 17 shots (52.9 percent) from inside the restricted area against Milwaukee’s paint-packing defense in the four-game sweep. He shot 74.9 percent at the rim in the regular season.
“You just got to sit there and just reflect,” Adebayo said of the Heat’s early playoff exit. “When I watch the playoffs now, I just sit there and reflect on what we could have done better, or what we did wrong. But, all in all, at the end of the day, there’s one dude that I’m happy for, and that’s [former Heat teammate] Jae Crowder. So I’m just happy he’s back to the Finals, and hopefully he can win it this year.”
The next step in Adebayo’s evolution could be incorporating the threepoint shot or more post moves into his repertoire to diversify his game as a scorer. He has shot 7 of 44 (15.9 percent) on threes in the regular season during his NBA career, but 32 of those 44 three-point looks have come out of desperation with less than four seconds remaining on the shot clock, according to NBA tracking stats.
Adebayo said during his camp appearance Thursday that he does plan to extend his game to threepoint range at some point soon.
Adebayo is due $28.1 million next season in the first year of a five-year, $163 million max contract extension he signed last offseason. He’s one of only five Heat players who entered the summer with a guaranteed salary for next season, which gives Miami flexibility to make big changes to its roster this offseason.
“It’s business at the end of the day,” Adebayo said. “And you’ve got to learn that at a young age, when you come in as a rookie. And I’ve had, out of my four years, I’ve had three different locker rooms. So it’s all about how you can adapt and how you can figure it out. So that’s why we’re here.”
When asked whether he will use his Olympic experience to recruit other stars to join him in Miami, Adebayo grinned and responded: “I don’t know. That’s part of the recruiting. You gotta figure it out.”
Will Adebayo pitch the Heat to other stars during his time in Tokyo? “I might. Or they might ask me,” he said. “It’s my job to be honest.”
Team USA will open its men’s training camp in
Las Vegas on Tuesday. Camp will include a fivegame exhibition schedule that begins with a July 10 matchup against Nigeria.
But camp will also include a chance to go up against the Team USA select team, which is a group of up-and-coming players who will be at the national team’s training camp in Las Vegas to practice and scrimmage against the Olympic roster. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra was recently named the head coach of the select team, and Heat guard Tyler Herro is on the 17-man roster.
“I’m looking to destroy Spo’s team,” Adebayo said with a laugh. “That’s what we’re looking to do. It’s a little gauge. We get to practice. It’s a little feud, but I think it’s going to be fun.”
Team USA opens the Olympics with group play on July 25 against France.
If Team USA advances to the gold medal game, it will be playing until Aug. 6. That’s about seven weeks before NBA training camps are scheduled to open on Sept. 28.