Miami Heat star Bam Adebayo adds to his impressive season as he received the honor of being Eastern Conference player of the week as announced by the team's X (formerly known as Twitter) account. This is the first time a player on the Heat has been named since October of 2021 when teammate Jimmy Butler received it.
For Adebayo, this is the second time he's been named Player of the Week in the East, the last being on Christmas Day in 2019. There have been 60 other players in the history of Miami that have earned this honor as no one else in the conference had as good of a week as Adebayo did.
Only counting outings from Jan. 8 through Jan. 14, the 26-year old lead Miami to a 3-1 record in the week after averaging 23.0 points, 11.0 rebounds, 5.8 assists and 1.00 blocks while shooting 56.5 percent from the field. He saw a boost in his play-making this week with absences like Butler, Tyler Herro, and Kyle Lowry.
Erik Spoelstra highlights exceptional Adebayo performance for Heat
This was highlighted by his performance against the Orlando Magic Friday where Adebayo scored 21 points, collected 11 rebounds, and recorded seven assists. Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra praised his performance saying that his presence was felt throughout the whole contest
“I just felt that he had his fingerprints all over this game. Defensively, he was anchoring everything, sometimes at the five, sometimes on the perimeter, but if he was on the perimeter, he was there to plug everything up. Guide everybody through all the actions and then finish the defense with a rebound,” Spoelstra said. “Offensively, because we had some firepower out of the game, we're running basically every action through him whether it was at the top or the elbows or in the post and we needed him to be a point guard from those positions. I don't think we would have generated enough points in this game and he didn't really help create some advantages with his vision, his passing and doing it from those different regions.”
Adebayo talks about getting everybody involved
While Adebayo is known for his elite defense and improving offense, his most underrated ability is to pass the ball. With the aforementioned absences, he took most of the ball-handling duties and found it great to get “everybody involved.”
“I feel like it's great getting everybody involved. Everybody feels comfortable, everybody feels like they're dependent on and we need everybody to be aggressive cause we're down guys,” Adebayo said. “But for the most part, it was great to have everybody who played involved and this type of things is building habits, building that connection. Getting used to one another. And obviously in the biggest moments of games down the line. Everybody got to be on the same page.”
According to a press release by the team, Adebayo is “also just the third Heat player to have a 20-point, 10-rebound streak of at least five games, joining Shaquille O’Neal and LeBron James, and is the only player to do so multiple times, having also accomplished the feat earlier this season.” It's safe to say that the University of Kentucky product is a top talent in the league.
Miami is 23-16 heading into Monday's contest against the Nets which puts them at fifth in the Eastern Conference. Entering Sunday's game against Charlotte, they were close to the bottom at the seventh seed.
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