Bam Adebayo: Heat aren't in it for a 'fairy-tale story'
As the Miami Heat enter the playoffs, they do so with the belief that anything less than a championship is a disappointment.
Following the team’s final practice of the regular season, Bam Adebayo stands off to the side of the Miami Heat’s upstairs court at FTX Arena. He’s still sweating from an intense, trash-talk filled one-on-one session with Dewayne Dedmon as he discusses the sweat equity that has brought his team this far.
The Heat are a day away from beating the Hawks in their last real game of the season (before a Sunday dress rehearsal in Orlando in which hardly any rotation players participated). Later that night, they’ll clinch the No. 1 seed in the East with losses by the Celtics and 76ers.
It’s the first time the Heat have had the No. 1 seed since 2013, when LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and Co. went on to beat the Spurs in the Finals. Now Miami’s latest group led by Adebayo, Jimmy Butler, Kyle Lowry and Tyler Herro have a chance to win the franchise’s first championship since the Big 3 era.
Obviously we want to get to the Finals, and we want a different outcome when we get there… We don’t want the same outcome, to come up short, ‘a fairy-tale story.’ — Bam Adebayo.
Adebayo was close two years ago in the bubble, when the Heat lost to the Lakers in the Finals. As he explained to me last Thursday, he still hasn’t gotten over that loss.
“It was rough for me because, you know, I hate to do the What If, but if…”
He stares off and takes a few moments to gather his thoughts before I help him out.
If you had been healthy?
“Yeah,” Adebayo said as he came to. “You never know what that season would have been. Me and Goran [Dragic] didn’t play.”
The fact of the matter is that the Heat have lost their last two playoff series. After losing in six games to the Lakers in 2020, they heard the talk that the bubble run was a fluke. They failed to defend themselves when they were swept by the Bucks last season.
Now, as the top team in the East, anything less than the Eastern Conference finals would be considered a disappointment from the outside. Inside the Heat, expectations are even higher.
“Obviously we want to get to the Finals, and we want a different outcome when we get there,” Adebayo told me. “We don’t want the same outcome, to come up short, ‘a fairy-tale story,’ this, that and the third.
“I want to win. I want a championship. I want to see what it feels like to be the last person standing. And that’s the bottom line. And everybody here is willing to sacrifice to get that accomplished.”
Much has changed since the Heat last made the Finals. Butler has been flanked by similarly-minded vets Kyle Lowry and P.J. Tucker. Herro went from bubble sensation to slumping sophomore to the likely Sixth Man of the Year. Miami’s valuable set of unearthed role players has quadrupled from just Duncan Robinson and now includes Max Strus, Gabe Vincent and Caleb Martin. The 2022 Heat are better than the 2020 edition.
But the Heat will only go as far as Butler and Adebayo take them. The NBA world has seen what Butler is capable of when the stakes are highest. He averaged 26.2 points on 55.2% shooting, 9.8 assists, 8.3 rebounds and 2.2 steals in six games in the Finals, including a legendary 40-point triple-double to prevent the Heat from going down 3-0 to the Lakers.
“Jimmy played out of his mind. People forget that,” Adebayo said. “You forget how great of a performance he had because we didn’t win.”
In the age of superteams, the Heat are attempting to become the first squad since the 2014 Spurs to win a championship without a logical MVP candidate.
Butler is the closest thing the Heat have to that, but he’s 32, has logged a ton of miles and struggled to stay healthy. No doubt he can still raise his game, but as last year’s playoff performance proved (14.5 points on 29.7% shooting in four losses to the Bucks), the Heat can’t rely solely on Bubble Butler to appear and drag them to the promise land.
As for Adebayo, he emerged from The Block as a perennial All-Defensive team candidate. On offense, he’s embraced a more aggressive slant and is averaging a career-high 19.1 points on 55.7% shooting. By Game 1 on Sunday, he’ll enter the postseason having shot 50% or better in 16 straight games. (The Heat will learn their first-round opponent after Friday night’s final play-in game.)
At 24, Adebayo is still getting better. He, like Butler, has a track record of raising his game in the playoffs. He has the talent. He has Finals experience. And he has a hunger. For the Heat to reach their goal, those traits will need to mix into a cocktail that can stand up in potential matchups with Joel Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kevin Durant.
But it’s not all on Bam. In the final weeks of the regular season, Adebayo pulled aside teammates and explained the importance of the opportunity they had. Embrace it all. Enjoy the moment. Live in the moment, he told them.
“Some dudes don’t know what it feels like to be in the Finals, period,” Adebayo said. “So like I tell ‘em, ‘Man, enjoy this process, enjoy this road and make your minutes count.’”
If there’s any doubt that Adebayo has become card-carrying member of #HeatCulture, there’s the proof. It’s been one year of not making the Finals and Adebayo is speaking with desperation. Imagine being the Kings, who will miss the postseason for the 16th straight year. For Adebayo, 18 months between Finals appearances is torture.
“He's the Zo [Alonzo Mourning]," Pat Riley told ESPN’s Zach Lowe in 2020. "He's the UD [Udonis Haslem]. He's the Dwyane [Wade]. They were standard-bearers. Bam is that person. He is the real deal."
When Riley delivered that quote, it was when the greater basketball world was just learning of Adebayo’s vast potential. But right now Riley, Adebayo and the rest of the Heat aren’t interested in what could be. They aren’t interested in overachieving or flukes. They are only interested in a championship. A ring. Something tangible.
This is no time for fairy tales.
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