Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo arrived to Team USA’s training camp in Las Vegas earlier this month looking to figure out his role on the national team.
With three of USA Basketball’s five pre-Olympic exhbition games in the books and the team set to open the Tokyo Olympics in less than two weeks on July 25 against France, Adebayo hasn’t noticed much of a difference yet from how he’s used with the Heat.
“It feels like I’m in a similar role and you learn from the guys that you’re on the court with,” Adebayo said following Team USA’s practice on Thursday. “So you just got to learn dudes’ tendencies. That’s the easy part because we’re all great at communicating and we’re all great at being honest with one another. So I feel like I’m in a similar role. But more of a scoring and passing threat than usual.”
Through the team’s first three exhibitions, Adebayo is averaging 9.7 points, 4.3 rebounds and 2.7 assists while playing 17 minutes per game out of the 40-minute international game format. Team USA closes its five-game exhibition schedule with a Friday rematch against Australia and a matchup against Spain on Sunday in Las Vegas before traveling to Tokyo.
Adebayo’s best performance for Team USA, so far, came when he recorded 12 points, five rebounds, five assists, one steal and one block in Tuesday’s exhibition win over Argentina. It was Team USA’s first victory after surprisingly dropping its first two exhibition games against Nigeria and Australia.
The one thing Adebayo has noticed in his first few weeks with Team USA is the extra space he has to operate underneath the three-point line. That’s because of the space the outside shooting of superstars like Kevin Durant and Damian Lillard creates.
“That gives me easier driving lanes,” Adebayo said. “It makes it easier for me to get a drive and kick, and then it makes it easier to get assists. That’s the benefit of playing with those type of guys. You get easy driving lanes and easy assists.”
If the first three exhibition games are any indication, Adebayo is going to be a consistent and important part of Team USA’s Olympic rotation. He started two of the first three exhibitions and is the closest thing to a traditional center on the roster.
Adebayo, who turns 24 on Sunday, is also one of the few post players on Team USA. The only other true USA Basketball frontcourt players are Cleveland’s Kevin Love, Golden State’s Draymond Green and Detroit’s Jerami Grant, with the national team looking to bring a more versatile group to the Olympics.
Green is the only one in that group who has averaged more minutes (20.3 per game) than Adebayo through the first three exhibitions. And national team head coach Gregg Popovich played Adebayo and Green together for extended minutes for the first time in Tuesday’s exhibition win, as Popovich surrounded USA Basketball’s elite scorers with the two facilitating big men to help fuel the offense.
“The one thing about it is we don’t want everybody on the court thinking too much,” Adebayo said. “So I feel like with me and Dray, we have a responsibility to do all the little stuff — the screening, getting people open, making the extra pass. And obviously go score when there’s an opportunity.”
Adebayo and Green combined for eight assists and one turnover in that game, a win over Argentina.
“They were very active, got everybody involved, and that’s something that’s really important for us,” Popovich said of Adebayo and Green. “Those are the kind of talents that they have, that fits best with our shooters, providing that sort of situation where shooters can get open shots. And we did it without turning it over, which makes it wonderful.”
Even through Green, 31, is a more experienced player than Adebayo, the three-time NBA champion admitted he has already learned a few things from Adebayo. Green added that he sees “a lot of similarities” in their games.
“Obviously, the way he reads the floor, the way he sees the game, it’s incredible,” Green said. “He’s an extremely good passer and uses other guys to his advantage. That has been a big thing with him with the Miami Heat. He was actually teaching me the other day how to be more effective with the fake dribble handoff and was giving me a couple tips with that, which was incredible.”
Adebayo is also taking lessons from Green.
“How vocal he is,” Adebayo said of his first impression of Green as a teammate. “That’s the one thing that makes Draymond Draymond is how vocal he is and how much of a leader he can be without scoring or putting the ball in the basket, obviously. He’ll have a game where he’ll have one point, but have 16 rebounds and like 17 assists. Just trying to figure out how to be that impactful and knowing that I have the ability to score, it’s just going to help me along the way.”
Adebayo is coming off the best two seasons of his NBA career. He won the Skills Challenge, played in his first NBA All-Star Game and helped lead the Heat to the NBA Finals in 2019-20, and averaged career highs in points, assists and steals this past season.
Adebayo will join Tim Hardaway, LeBron James, Alonzo Mourning and Dwyane Wade on the list of Heat players who have played for Team USA in the Olympics. With the next Olympic Games coming in 2024 in Paris and then 2028 in Los Angeles, Adebayo could end up taking part in three different Olympics by the time he’s 31 if he’s also on the national team in 2024 and 2028.
There could have also been an appearance in the 2019 FIBA World Cup on Adebayo’s resume, but he was cut after participating in the national team’s training camp. Two years later, Adebayo is on the verge of playing a prominent role in the Olympics.
“I’ve always said before, I feel like I should’ve been on the team from the get go,” Adebayo said, looking back to 2019. “But Pop [and I] hashed it out and I worked on my game. He said I wasn’t ready, so I had a point to prove that I could’ve been on the team. That was my goal. I did that, I’m here now and it’s my opportunity to show why I’m here.”
ANOTHER HEAT PLAYER ON TEAM USA?
USA Basketball announced Thursday that Washington Wizards guard Bradley Beal will not participate in the Tokyo Olympics after entering health and safety protocols.
Team USA now has to replace Beal’s spot on the 12-man Olympic roster, with the team saying in a press release that “a roster replacement will be named at a later time.”
One name that has surfaced as a potential option to replace Beal on Team USA is Heat sharpshooter Duncan Robinson, who has been going through offseason workouts in Los Angeles in recent weeks. According to Sports Illustrated’s Grant Afseth, Robinson “is among the replacement options that USA Basketball is considering.”
Robinson, who was on Team USA’s initial list of roughly 60 players for the Tokyo Olympics, will be a free agent this offseason. That complicates matters because free agency opens during the Olympics on Aug. 2.
“We have to make sure that somebody is in shape because we don’t really have time once we get there,” Popovich said of finding a replacement with less than two weeks until the start of the Olympics. “It’s just a couple practices with getting them in shape, so that’s a consideration. It’s tough to just walk in here and be able to do this. For the last week, we’ve been working on how we want to play on both ends of the court. So somebody is coming in kind of blind and if they’re out of shape, you’re not sure how much that can help.
“So we’re going through names just probably like all you guys in the media are and trying to decide what we think fits. Some people may not be ready to come. Some people may not be interested. Some people may be in rehab. Some people might be free agents.”
Team USA also placed Grant in health and safety protocols “out of an abundance of caution,” but he has not been ruled out of the Olympics.
