Does Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo need more talent around him? Dan Le Batard thinks so
Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo receives lots of criticism from fans and media when he doesn't score enough.
He's also taken most of the load when the Heat struggle. But at least one media personality is siding with Adebayo.
Dan Le Batard recently defended the Heat's three-time All-Star. He said the organization needs to do a better job of putting talent around Adebayo.
Le Batard compared it to the 2010 Eastern Conference playoffs when Heat legend Dwyane Wade said he needed more players after losing to the Boston Celtics. That summer, the Heat added LeBron James and Chris Bosh. They went on to win two championships in four straight NBA Finals appearances.
"This sounds like a disgruntled superstar, the things that he's saying," Le Batard said. "His body language and his frustration remind me of what Dwyane said when he got eliminated in the playoffs as a solo act and said, `I'm not doing it this way any more. I'm not playing this way any more.' And then they went and formed the Big Three. Bam's got to be tired of this."
It just seems the Heat have been in purgatory since the Jimmy Butler era ended. They made the playoffs as the No. 8 seed in 2023 but have been stuck in Play-In Tournament mode the past few years.
So far, this season has been no different. The Heat are once again in the bottom-tier of the conference.
"There's too much effort being poured into Bam from Bam," Le Batard said. "Everything is built around him. He's the un-tradeable one. I know he gets a bad rap from people who want him to be better. He's great. He's a really great basketball player. He could be frustrating. You could want him to be better but Bam Adebayo would be valuable to any basketball team in the league. Not just the way that he plays, not just his attitude, the entire package. Anybody in the league would want that guy on their team ... But Bam is OK if he yells out at the organization, `Hey, I need more help."'
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Shandel Richardson is the publisher of HeatRoundtable. He can be reached at shandelrich@gmail.com