Heat’s Bam Adebayo reacts to historic All-Defense honor

Bam Adebayo wants Defensive Player of the Year

Adebayo is the first Heat player to make First Team All-Defense since LeBron James earned his third consecutive selection in 2012-13. Miami’s only other First Team All-Defense honoree is franchise icon Alonzo Mourning, who went back-to-back in 1998-1999 and 1999-2000, when he also won Defensive Player of the Year.

Adebayo finished third in Defensive Player of the Year voting this season, once again behind Gobert and Wembanyama. He received three first place tallies and 91 points overall, well behind both French centers. Still, Adebayo believes awards voters have begun coming around to his seemingly perennial case as the best defenders in the NBA.

“For me, are people starting to pay attention? I feel like they are at this point,” he said. “This is my first time being First Team in my career. So I feel like it’s a stepping stone and we’re just going to keep this ball rolling.”

The Heat finished fifth in defensive rating during the regular season, surrendering 2.2 points per 100 possessions fewer with Adebayo on the floor, per NBA.com/stats. Broadly regarded as perhaps the best one-on-one defender in basketball and easily the sport’s most seamlessly switchable big man, Adebayo played a more varied defensive role for Miami in 2023-24, often deploying more traditional pick-and-roll coverage than a straight switch or outright blitz. The result was Adebayo spending more time around the rim than normal, where he forced opponents into below-average 58.6% shooting—not just a whopping 6.3 point stingier than last season, but the lowest mark of his career.

It’s been obvious for years that Adebayo is more capable of guarding one-through-five at an elite level than any player in the NBA. But scheme versatility is different from matchup versatility, and Adebayo shored up relative deficiencies as a back-line rim-protector this season while playing more aggressive drop coverage in ball-screen situations. Of course, his progress in that regard hardly prevented Miami from unleashing him pretty much however the coaching staff wanted.

“To be able to do drop, switch, trap and zone all in the same game and have the best numbers in all of those coverages, and one-on-one, that’s not normal,” Erik Spoelstra told Couper Morehead of Adebayo in late March.

Adebayo long ago cemented himself as one of the league’s most impactful defenders. Now more effective than ever shouldering typical center responsibilities while continuing to prey on offenses in ways that truly make him special, Adebayo seems better equipped than ever to finally take home the Hakeem Olajuwon Trophy. Whether he ever wins it or not, though, rest assured that Adebayo won’t ever question his place in the league’s defensive hierarchy.

“I wouldn’t say it was disappointment because I can’t be disappointed because I didn’t vote,” Adebayo said of missing out of the Defensive Player of the Year award. “It is what it is. I don’t control that part of it. For me in my eyes, I’m going to always feel like I’m the Defensive Player of the Year.”