2024-25 Miami Heat Player Review: Bam Adebayo

The player review series is officially back! We are nearly one month removed from the conclusion of the 2024-25 Miami Heat season, which was one of the worst since the turn of the century. Over the next several (week)days, we will be reviewing how each Heat player performed throughout the 2024-25 season, recapping important numbers, best game(s) and their future outlook with the team. Today, we will starting with Heat captain Bam Adebayo.

Let’s dive into it, shall we?!?

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Brief Overview:

2024-25 stats (78 games):

• 18.1 PTS
• 9.6 REB
• 4.3 AST
• 1.3 STL
• 0.7 BLK
• 48.5 FG%
• 56.1 TS%

Adebayo, 27, had a rocky season. After a brutal first half, he sported the worst field goal percentage and true-shooting percentages of his career with his worst effective field goal percentage since his rookie season.

Up until the new year, Adebayo’s touch inside of 15 feet was off. Thus, he couldn’t find his rhythm offensively, killing his confidence from 3-point range despite being the backbone of yet another top-10 Heat defense.

Well, positive regression ultimately kicked in, as he averaged 21.0 points on 51.3/43.2/81.1 shooting splits since the start of February and was the Heat’s best player during the second half of the season. Unfortunately, this didn’t lend any positive postseason results, and he finished outside the top-5 for Defensive Player of the Year voting for the first time since 2018-19. That said, there were definitely positives to take away, especially from a leadership standpoint that Adebayo carried on- and off-the-court amid Jimmy Butler’s fiasco with the front office.

Numbers To Note:

79 – Adebayo took a tremendous leap as a floor spacer this season. He entered the season wanting to take at least 100 3-pointers. Well, he more than doubled that, attempting 221 while making 79 total triples. In his first seven seasons, he attempted 104 total (23 makes). Not to mention, over his last 35 games, Adebayo made 43.5 percent of his 3.3 triple tries per game. Defenses still weren’t respecting him from deep all that much, but that’s the next phase.

29.5 – However, one of the biggest concerns of Adebayo’s shot profile is his (in)ability to get to the free-throw line. His free-throw rate–the number of free throw attempts per FGA–dipped to 29.5 percent this season, by far the lowest mark of his career. Over his first seven seasons, his free-throw rate sat at 43.0 percent. Adebayo’s done a poor job of getting to the rim and drawing contact, instead settling for a 5-10 foot floater or pull-up jumper. The lack of a true point guard to set Adebayo up better is an issue, but not getting to the free-throw line often when you’re one of the team’s top creators is an even greater issue.

0.62 – While Adebayo’s offensive game took a dip at the beginning of the season, he was excellent defensively (still) for practically the entire season. According to NBA.com’s tracking data, he limited opposing players to 0.62 points per possession in isolation, ranking in the 92nd percentile, the second-best mark in the NBA (min. 50 isolations defended).

Best game?

Believe it or not, you could pick from a number of games. It was very tough. But I am picking his March 5 performance against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Miami still couldn’t get the job done, but Adebayo did his best to put Miami on his back with 34 points, 12 rebounds, five assists and two steals on 11-of-18 shooting and 3-of-5 from 3-point range. The Heat was down Tyler Herro, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Nikola Jovic, Kel’el Ware and Andrew Wiggins, yet still nearly upset the Cavaliers on their home floor.

What’s next?

Getting Adebayo a true point guard would help, but what I’m really fascinated with is his fit next to Kel’el Ware and how that will progress. The results were murky offensively when those two shared the floor together, but the potential defensively was tantalizing. Adebayo got back to his pre-2024 days of switching most actions with Ware protecting the rim at an adequate level. The Heat captain ended the season strongly and, hopefully, has more size and two-way prowess around him as we enter the prime years of his career.

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