Bam Adebayo is spending his 2024 offseason in Las Vegas and Paris with the Team USA basketball team but has remained focused on his NBA future.
With seven seasons under his belt, Adebayo addressed his issues with the NBA’s inconsistent voting procedure for the Defensive Player of the Year award. Since becoming Miami’s full-time starter in 2019, the center has become one of the most versatile defenders in the league, being able to fully defend all five positions on all areas of the court.
Bam Adebayo Addresses Recent DPOY Snubs
With Team USA in their final weeks before leaving for the 2024 Summer Olympics, Bam Adebayo spoke with the media on July 10 ahead of the team’s friendly exhibition with Canada later that day. As the 26-year-old would tell Yahoo Sports, Adebayo feels that he is being punished for being a “versatile” defender with the “goalposts moving” for him each season.
Adebayo said:
It’s not my fault I’m versatile. I’ve been top five in DPOY voting the last five years [but] there’s been guys y’all been giving it to over me… A point guard got it over me, a center got it over me, a power forward has gotten it over me. The goalposts move for me in certain degrees. [On the Heat], it’s me and a lot of undrafted dudes and we still have a top-five defense.
Since the 2019-2020 season, Adebayo has been named to the NBA All-Defensive team in each season. He was named the Second-Team center from 2020 to 2023 but was recognized as a First-Team member in 2024. So far, the highest Adebayo finished in the Defensive Player of the Year voting was third in 2023-2024 behind winner Rudy Gobert and runner-up Victor Wembanyama.
Bam Adebayo Defensive Stats
Bam Adebayo has averaged over 15 points per game in five straight NBA seasons but has made a name for himself primarily on the defensive end. Not known as a dominant every-night scoring threat, Adebayo quickly emerged as one of the league’s top defenders with the size and strength to lock down opposing big men while also owning the athleticism and recovery speed to shadow the best perimeter players.
In the last five years, Adebayo has averaged over one steal per game each season while consistently hovering near 1.0 blocks per game. However, his effectiveness often does not translate to the stat sheet, which is typically the driving factor behind Defensive Player of the Year recognition.
Since Adebayo overtook Hassan Whiteside as the starting center in South Beach, the Heat have finished outside of the top 10 in defensive rating just once with two of those five years being in the top five. Miami has yet to finish top three in defensive rating in Adebayo’s time, an accomplishment each of the last five Defensive Player of the Year recipients was a part of.
Bam Adebayo’s Potential Contract Incentives
As Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports pointed out, Bam Adebayo has lost out on a potential $100 million by not receiving the Defensive Player of the Year award in either of his first seven years in the NBA.
Adebayo signed a lucrative three-year $166 million contract extension in July to remain in Miami through the 2028-2029 season. However, Goodwill noted that he would have been eligible for a significantly larger deal had he won the premier individual defensive award according to the Collective Bargaining Agreement guidelines.
Goodwill also noted that under the same rule set, Adebayo may have been eligible for the aforementioned additional paycheck had he waited another year to sign an extension and won the 2025 NBA Defensive Player of the Year award. The center will remain under his current deal until 2026 when his recently signed extension will be applied.
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