What's Been Going On With Bam Adebayo Part 2: A Full Breakdown of His Season
A full breakdown of Bam Adebayo's season
So, continuing from part one of What’s Been Going on With Bam Adebayo, which you can check out here:
Now, that was a lengthy discussion, but I believed it was necessary to even explain what’s been going on with Adebayo and to put some of it in context — but it’s not entirely needed if you want to get to the Xs and Os and the “how” he’s struggling rather than the reasons we’re here. But I do recommend that for more big-picture discussion.
Because when it comes to Adebayo’s offense this year, it started off differently. There was a change where he wasn’t involved in the offense at all and that was a big reason why his usage dropped. But since then, his offense has remained the same as it was in the last two seasons.
There’s nothing different in how he’s being used and his ability in that role. That role is that shot creator mold that pushes him to continue to be more aggressive and involves him a lot as a self-creator.
That’s where the shooting slump does make the season a lot worse than it is. However, that shooting slump can also be attributed to factors other than simply brushing it off as a shooting slump.
You will find me mention that a lot of his struggles has been that slump and slow start in a small sample. That is 100% a valid reason that is most definitely what’s happening here. Almost everything can be explained with that. But that also misses out on why that could be happening. Although it can be explained by it, the root cause of it goes deeper. There are reasons why he not only struggles with the shooting slump drastically but also why he hasn’t been able to impact the offense in a different way.
Because I want to point this out. I know many will jump out and say that this is over analyzing this because it is a small sample that is most likely a shooting slump. But even if he was shooting his averages from last year, the issues would still be there.
As mentioned, there has been a change in his usage early on. There has been a shift in how they go about the offense overall and how they look to use Adebayo.
One major stat that shows that is his shots per 100 to start the game. In the last three seasons, he averaged around 22 FGA per 100. That dropped to 14. There’s clearly been a shift. He’s only had one game where he took over five shots in the first quarter.
It felt like there wasn’t a clear direction that he was comfortable with. That’s what it’s felt with Adebayo this year.
Directionless.
I’m not sure what the goal is or should be with Adebayo right now. There is the question of him shooting 3s, being in 5-out, being the hub one game, then running double-digit possessions in the post the other. It’s having stretches at different points feeding him, and it’s all over the place.
No wonder a player can’t get rhythm or looks out of sync offensively. I don’t think he, the teammates, or even Spoelstra know what he should be doing on any given night.
This breakdown will go through all of that. It will address what’s actually been happening on the court.
How has he been used on the court? Is he involved in many on-ball actions? What does he do off-ball? How has the ratio between being involved in on/off ball actions changed? What kind of shots is he taking and from where? Does that show any reason why he’s been struggling? Maybe it’s the playtypes?
We’ll go through the general usage and his role offensively throughout the 13 games and how that has changed because there has been a drastic shift early on. We’ll dive into all of the tracking stats, touches, passes, and everything else that’s relevant to show his role.
Moving onto his basketball skills, we’ll first look at his off-ball spacing and spot-ups. That will look at what exactly he does when he’s not involved in any of the actions. What does he do when he’s not the ball handler, not the screener in the PNR, and not the screener away from the ball? Is he spacing in the corners? Above the break? Dunker spot?
Finally, it’s going through all of the on-ball actions. Where has the efficiency dropped? How has it dropped? I’ve separated it by going through his self-creation(isolation & post-ups) and his roll possessions. We’ll dig deeper into the kind of shots he takes in the situation.
This is a long breakdown, so if you do manage to get to the end, I appreciate you taking the time and hopefully, you have enjoyed this. I’ve looked to get all the stats and film to show the whole picture of what’s been going on with Adebayo’s game.
So, What’s Been Going On?
He is having the worst offensive season in his career.
He’s averaging a career-low 17 points per 75 possessions on 45.4% eFG and 50.1% TS. The impact metrics also have him as either a negative or around that — -0.6 O-EPM, +0.13 O-LEBRON, and +0.2 O-DPM.
His shot profile has been abysmal:
Rim(within 4ft per PBP): 63.0% on 5.0 FGA per 100(25.1% freq)
Short mid-range(4-14ft): 38.3% on 10.2(51.4%)
Long mid-range(14-3pt): 27.3% on 1.2(6.0%)
3pt: 31.2% on 3.5(17.5%)
Only a quarter of his shots at the rim as a big is hilarious. His shooting at the rim is also concerning. If it’s not a dunk, he hasn’t been able to finish at all.
Let’s look at his play types too:
Transition: 0.81 points per poss | 2.0 poss(11% freq) | 47.5% eFG
Isolation: 0.92 | 1.9(11%) | 50.0%
Post up: 0.82 | 3.1(17%) | 38.2%
PNR roll man: 0.91 | 3.4(19%) | 47.2%
Spot up: 0.60 | 2.3(13%) | 26.9%
Cut: 1.52 | 2.1(11%) | 77.3%
Putbacks: 0.84 | 1.5(8%) | 35.7%
I also want to show the difference in frequency to last year:
Transition: 11% / 12%
Isolation: 11% / 10%
Post up: 17% / 22%
PNR roll man: 18% / 19%
Spot up: 13% / 6%
Cut: 11% / 14%
Putbacks: 8% / 7%
How he’s being used outside of doubling the spot-up frequency and dropping slightly on the post-ups, it’s all relatively the same. And if you want to see the shot attempts distribution:
PNR roll man: 15/35
Post: 13/34
Spot up: 5/26
Cut: 17/22
Transition: 9/20
Isolation: 10/20
Putbacks: 5/14
Other(misc, PNR, off-screen, handoff): 4/12
That’s also not the only part. His usage has been inconsistent, especially compared to last year:
His issues offensively is a because of so many factors:
Inconsistent usage
Being more off-ball
Shooting slump
Change in the role on a given night
Poor finishing
Living on a tough-shot diet
At different points in the season, a handful of those factors showed up. So, let’s go through all of those points and see where, how, and why Adebayo is struggling.
Usage to start the season & Change in Role
This was more apparent early in the season and less so now. This was probably the biggest reason for his slow start. The Orlando Magic game showed that to the extreme.
It all had to do with how he was used and positioned. His game didn’t change. Whenever he did have the ball or was directly involved in the offense either as the ball handler or the screener, the end result was the same. What was different was the volume at which he wasn’t involved at all and where he was positioned.
This has been the season where he has looked to at least attempt 3s and they made sure to treat him that way. The amount of times I’ve written in my notes “spaced in the corner” was a lot to start the season. He was camping in the corner. At times, you saw a cut or an off-ball screen here and there.
It shouldn’t have been surprising that he wasn’t doing anything. This isn’t even talking about putting up shots but simply being involved in the offense.
That has shown up in his tracking stats with time of possession. Here’s that by game:
2.1 → 2.3 → 2.7 → 1.9 → 3.8(Wizards) → 2.7 → 2.6 → 2.8 → 2.4 → 3.1 → 4.6 → 3.0 → 2.9
Here are his tracking stats in the first four games vs since then vs the last four games:
Touches per 36: 59.0 → 66.0 → 63.1
Frontcourt touches per 36: 35.5 → 44.9 → 40.8
Time of possession: 2.2 → 3.1 → 3.4
Average seconds: 2.61 → 2.74 → 3.03
Average dribble: 1.50 → 1.66 → 1.85
This is clear by the stats and on film. Another stat that is a good proxy is the screen assists(I don’t have access to how many on-ball screens he set). He averaged 2.0 in the first four games and 4.0 since then.
In the first four games, this is what a lot of the possessions looked like with him:
By also being in the corner or on the break, there was little to no opportunity to get putbacks or dumpoffs. That’s where we saw the diminished usage. He wasn’t involved in screens, wasn’t getting fed as the roll man, and wasn’t fed in isolation or the post.
That stretch was rather strange. I wasn’t expecting Adebayo to be put in that kind of role. Even he, as an off-ball player, looked lost out there. Some of the off-ball movements that he was doing where he wasn’t sure if he had to cut, space, screen, roll, or relocate. It was weird.
But that did explain the significant drop in usage, touches, and shots to start and it was changed rather quickly. That was something Spoelstra took upon himself very early on to make sure that he was never that uninvolved.
More recently, that has been less of an issue. He has not only been involved in more PNRs, it’s been used differently. Rather than using him as a spacer, it was using him as the hub, particularly in delay actions.
This is where he can do more damage. This should be how you maximize Adebayo by giving him the ball to make decisions. This gives you the best option for running handoffs, drawing the big out of the paint, or flowing into on-ball actions that actually involve your best screener and roller. What comes after that, particularly when it does turn into a PNR, the effectiveness is a different conversation. What matters here is how he’s used and the volume it’s at.
Here are some other tracking stats(first 4 vs last 4) that show this change:
Elbow touches per 36: 3.2 → 4.0
Post ups: 0.9 → 2.8
Paint touches: 4.5 → 6.8
Passes per 36: 42.2 → 45.2
Potential assists: 5.7 → 7.8
All of this was the right shift in using Adebayo how he’s always been used. Before worrying about anything else, they had to at least put him in that position in the first place.
Side note. This not only helps him but helps every guard on this team.
This allows for plays like this, where it’s him in Delay actions or as a hub on the elbow/above the break that then can flow into a handoff machine, flow into Chicago actions, or other variations of it:
Or it can be using him as the hub to make reads to pass if that’s what the defense gives him:
It can also be him taking it upon himself to attack instead:
That’s what can happen if you get him involved. That’s why the whole thought process of having him off-ball was really strange initially.
Finally, there’s the lower and inconsistent usage, that can change at any given point. You can see in the graph above how there are spikes, how it decreases gradually, before going back to the opposite extreme. There is no consistency in how he’s being used.
Even with being involved by having the ball, it still feels as if there’s this uncertainty from him and the team on what he should be doing. Is he getting others involved more? Is he meant to score more? People say his usage is low, but should it be higher? My issue is the inconsistency.
Here are some splits by quarter in usage and AST%:
1st: 17.7% / 18.5%
2nd: 29.4% / 19.4%
3rd: 21.6% / 17.6%
4th: 18.5% / 14.3%
Compared to last year:
1st: 25.2% / 18.2%
2nd: 25.0% / 19.6%
3rd: 25.1% / 20.7%
4th: 23.9% / 18.2%
Things are more constant within the game. Now, it’s he’s asked to pass more early on and not get involved to score until the second where the huge spike comes in(bigger than any other usage last year) before dropping by 8% and dropping again in both in the fourth. What is the pattern here?
How can a player know what he should do when the expectations of his role, not only game by game but within the game too?
Take his 2021 season:
1st: 24.2% / 24.7%
2nd: 22.9% / 26.0%
3rd: 22.8% / 28.1%
4th: 22.8% / 28.1%
The role was clear then. He’s a passer that gets everyone else going. Everything remains relatively the same.
MAKE HIS LIFE EASIER!
This is what I mean by saying the goal for his offense is directionless. Is it to be a scorer? A passer? Being both is tough and he hasn’t shown he can do that, so something has to change.
That is everything when it comes to role and usage. It started off weird and since then it has shifted to what you’d want but it’s still all over the place. This is on the coach. This is on the offense you want to run and what you expect from your players.
Let’s move on to his basketball skills.
Off-Ball: Spacing & Spot Ups
Starting off with his off-ball. That is any actions that he is not involved in. He is not a hub. He is not a screener. He is not in Delay actions. He is not the ball handler. This is looking at how and where he’s positioned and what he does when other actions are being run because that has been an issue.
The change this year is the addition of the spot-up 3s. As seen in his spot-up frequency, it has more than doubled. Taking over 3.5 3s per 100 possessions has given him another option to go to.
They have made an effort with placing him both, above the break and in the corners. Although the results aren’t there yet, this had to happen. For him to even look to take 3s, he obviously had to be in a position to take 3s. Whether or not he actually took them or made them, the potential for him to be a spacing big was never going to happen if he’s sitting in the dunker spot.
This is all baby steps in the right direction because it’s still a long way until this is a viable option for a few reasons.
He’s making them at a very low percentage. Only 10/32(31.3%)
He’s taking them at a low volume. Only 3.5 per 100
The defense doesn’t respect him at all and plays off him
A lot of the time unwilling to take the 3s
He doesn’t provide the spacing, nor does the defense pay at all with either making them or at times taking them.
All this does is kill possessions. On those two possessions, it ended up being a worse shot or a turnover because he didn’t want to let it fly with confidence. That hurts the team, especially when he’s spaced either in the corners or above the break more often than not
This is similar to what we’ve seen earlier with him spacing. The ratio of him being away from the actions is much lower, but when he is off-ball it’s still a bunch of the same thing. It’s mostly standing in the corner and doing nothing but an occasional lift/screen.
He’s also been tasked with spacing above the break:
Again, a lot of it is just standing around. Notice the defense too. They’re still, rightfully so, helping off and having a foot in the paint.
Something has to change(and this would also start with the team). Either you make sure you kick the ball to him a lot of these times and he makes sure to let it fly and hopefully gets better as a shooter, or there’s no reason to have him space there.
Having him above the break takes the biggest, most athletic guy out of the paint where he can potentially finish on dumpoffs. We’ve seen his cut frequency drop. The ratio between him spacing in the dunker spot vs outside the 3-point line has been a lot towards the latter. That again plays a part in his role change.
So, one of the simplest ways to get out of this is for Adebayo to get out of his head and let it fly. In many of the possessions, he doesn’t even have his hands up and looking to shoot. You can feel that his next move is to do something else with the ball.
But, there’s also another way and it’s him being more active off-ball. Non-shooters can still create spacing in other ways, such as timely cuts and more screening. I don’t think I’ve seen Adebayo cut multiple times a game when the defense was helping off. Cutting makes the defense think. Standing above the break and doing nothing but waiting for the past makes the defense relax and chill.
This is a new role, though. Cutting as a wing and looking to be constantly on the move is different. That’s why you can see in some of those videos that he is looking to move but he looks lost out there. It’s like he’s thinking, do I set a screen? Do I pop? Do I move? What do I do? This will take reps to sort out.
That’s all of the off-ball and everything that comes with it. That is one of the main holes in his offense. The Heat have made it so that he is involved a lot more in actions, whether it’s running PNRs, handoffs, or simply being a hub. Involving him as much as possible makes the other worry less of a worry.
But it is still something he has to work on to be effective if there are other actions being run. If they do run an isolation or a post-up for Butler or Jaquez. If they do want to run some guard-guard screening or post-split actions with shooters. That’s where Adebayo’s skill off-ball will be on display. Adding the element of a spot-up option is great, but it needs to fit better.
Moving onto his scoring and whenever he’s involved in the actions. That has been a bigger eye-raising concern.
What he’s doing hasn’t changed much. How he approaches isolations and post-ups is essentially the same thing with the same issues. His rolls are the same(outside of an occasional pop) which also leads to more isolation and post-ups with where he ends his roll.
That’s where we see his efficiency diminish and we can see that through his shot diet:
Catch and shoot 2s: 36.0% on 1.9(13.7% freq)
Pull up 2s: 33.3% on 2.5(18.0%)
Less than 10ft: 52.2% on 7.1(50.3%)
31% of his offense is either a pull-up 2pt or a catch-and-shoot 2. What kind of early 2000s shot diet is that? Why are we taking over 4 shots per game as that?
This is also where the shooting slump shows up like a B**** because these were his percentages for the last two years:
C&S 2pt: 45.9% → 41.1%
PU 2pt: 45.1% → 41.1%
Less than 10ft: 59.4% → 60.6%
So, he’s definitely better than what he’s been now. That should change and improve over time with simple shooting regression to the mean. Another sign of encouragement is that from 2020 to 2024, he shot 47.9% from 3-10ft and 44.0% from 10-16ft. That has dropped to 37.7% and 38.9%. This is extremely out of the ordinary for him.
But the issue is the fact that it’s his diet in the first place. As mentioned at the beginning, he has a 25.1% rim rate. That’s a drop off from 30.5% last year. His rim rate has been gradually declining since 2020:
54.7% → 41.7% → 44.6% → 35.7% → 30.5% → 25.1%
Equally as concerning is the finishing. That has also been dropping off:
70.8% → 74.8% → 73.2% → 68.1% → 68.0% → 63.0%
Digging deeper, his 2-point shots off 0 dribbles have fallen off the cliff. Here’s the efficiency(and frequency) since 2020:
63.7%(48.7%) → 65.0%(50.4%) → 63.0%(43.3%) → 60.2%(44.9%) → 57.6%(37.4%) → 50.7%(36.6%)
The frequency is explainable. That has to do with more self-creation and less willingness to roll hard to get shots at the rim, and instead going for those short mid-range. The finishing, though, is alarming and has been trending downwards. Maybe the frequency has dropped so much that the volume outweighs what he gets at the rim.
All of this simply compounds the bad start that he’s had. He has the same kind of usage in terms of how he gets his shots, which was already killing his efficiency by taking a high volume of those long 2s, even at a respectable rate. And it’s made 100 times worse by having the worst slump of his career to start a season.
With that said, let’s look at his two main(three) ways of getting offense: isolation/post-ups(self-creation) and roll man.
Isolation & Post-Ups:
His self-creation offense through isolation and post-ups make up around 28% of his possessions. That’s a lot and that’s also a big reason why his efficiency has dipped over the last few seasons, and more so this year.
Post: 33pts on 40 possessions & 13/34
Isolation: 23pts on 25 possessions & 10/20 FGA
In total, he has scored 56pts(26% of total points) on 65 possessions and went 23/54(42%).
This is the biggest culprit of his poor efficiency because of the volume and effectiveness even in his better seasons. By needing to get your offense through either isolation or a post-up, that means he’s being used less in potentially more efficient ways, such as being a roll man(though that hasn’t been efficient either). That has been his biggest source of getting rim pressure. Without that, he depends on himself to create shots at the rim and that hasn’t led to good shots consistently.
I’ve called out on this kind of shot over the last two years and got so much backlash because he was making them on a decent clip. He has shot in the high 40s the last two seasons on those kinds of shots. But it was always the fact that his habit and first instinct was always to go for tough shot fadeaways and it didn’t matter who was defending him. A small player he can overpower or a slow-footed big man that can’t move his feet.
This is also where analytics come into question because you can find out that he shoots around 50% on some of these shots in previous seasons. 50%? That’s obviously a great look then, but it’s only a good shot if that’s your counter or part of your arsenal that is highly efficient. Shooting 1.0 points per shot as your diet will just lead to one of the worst offenses. That’s what we’re seeing with Adebayo.
But it looks pretty and it goes in half the time, so all that means is stop being a nerd!
His most common way of getting shots up by self-creation is backing guys down and going for a fade:
A lot of that feels like he’s settling. At times he has the clear advantage whether it’s speed, strength, or size and more often than not, it ends in that kind of shot. It also usually happens after holding the ball, taking too long to make a decision, or taking too long to back down the defender. All that does is kill time on the possession deciding on what to do and ending the possession with a fadeaway shot.
Here are his percentages on fadeaways(note that these stats may not be entirely accurate because the labeling of shot types is inconsistent and overlaps] starting this year:
7/21(33.3%) → 70/146(47.9%) → 46/105(43.8%) → 21/48(43.8%) → 17/38(44.7%)
This is another area that is made worse than it is because of the shooting slump. He has been consistently around the mid-40s on those shots.
You’ll find me saying a lot of the times that his offense has been worse than it is because of a shooting slump and shooting variance, but it really is that. It is a very simple, dumb explanation, but that’s most likely it.
The issue of him having to go for those shots and rely on them is a different story. But the difference between this year and last year can easily be brushed over as a small sample shooting slump.
Similar to that, he has always been able to get closer to the paint and get easier looks:
And this is also another area that is affected by shooting slump. Here are his percentages on hooks:
6/16(31.6%) → 35/69(56.0%) → 40/84(47.6%) → 28/64(43.8%) → 25/48(52.1%)
Then there are the pull-up 2s:
We do have his drives to the rim or drawing fouls but they don’t happen as often.
But this is also something he isn’t great at either. His touch when it comes to his self-created layups and off drives has been gradually decreasing:
Percentage on layups(starting this year):
32.0% → 49.3% → 52.8% → 56.2% → 57.8%
Percentage on drives:
43.5% → 54.5% → 51.0% → 57.8% → 56.9%
He’s had the lowest finishing rate on layups in the last five seasons. That will bounce back. Shooting 32% is abysmal that no competent player in the league shoots, but the trend started earlier with him attacking more by himself resulting in small drop-offs in efficiency.
What makes this worse is his foul rate in isolation and post-ups:
ISO: 12.0% → 16.2% → 18.1% → 18.7% → 19.5%
Post: 12.5% → 15.0% → 10.1% → 18.8% → 16.4%
That will hurt the overall efficiency if there isn’t a way to offset the tough, poor shooting with at least getting to the line. I’m not sure how surprising this is if the shots he is getting are further away from the rim.
I also want to touch on his lack of passing in the post which contributes to this issue.
These are the same fades shown earlier but notice how many of them have a kick available somewhere, but he still settles for a tough shot. Choosing to go for those shots instead of making the kick also hurts his overall offense.
This has been a topic for Adebayo because of where he started as a player where he was passive and timid. In the last two years, it’s been shifting towards an aggressive scorer looking to get his, but it also has gone to the extreme the other way. I tweeted a similar thing around 2 years ago too. Some of the counters that this is a normal adjustment as he started on the extreme the other way, but almost 2 years later the pendulum still hasn’t swung back.
He is capable of making the passes:
But still one of the main areas of improvement is needing to be able to make these reads seamlessly. As noted on numerous occasions, his passing vs scoring is very binary. It’s one or the other. There are flashes of excellent, high-level reads. In the clip above, there are two instances where he gets the ball in the post and immediately recognizes the skip pass. Those are rare, though.
I do expect all of this to improve as the season goes on. Adebayo is not that poor of a shooter even when he has to do all of the work. The reasonable bounce back should be to what he was doing in the last two seasons, but that’s also part of an issue. He’d still remain one of the least efficient players with a lot of his offense being here. That’s the concerning part that his troubles in this area have been here for the last two seasons and it’s exactly the same.
Roll Man
Moving onto his roll game. Similar to ISO/post, this has almost identical issues.
Word for word. Bar for bar.
The issues are also everything that has shown up in the last three seasons. It’s a gradual decrease in rolling/diving hard to the rim in favor of mid-range pull ups, and floaters, and also turning those possessions into ISO/post instead.
And again, it’s made a lot worse because he is in the shooting slump. His bread and butter in that PNR that has been effective just goes out the window if he can’t make shots, but the encouragement is obviously there that he can and will bounce back.
But looking at his PNR over the years, it has been trending downward. Here are his roll man efficiency(and eFG%) over the years starting this year:
0.91(47.2%) → 1.04(51.5%) → 1.14(55.1%) → 1.11(54.9%) → 1.32(67.7%)
What a drop-off, but it’s easily explained with the shots that he takes and the slump. With the rolls, though it goes beyond shooting slump. Equally as important is how Adebayo approaches rolling in the first place. This is what has been trending towards to.
There is a reason why a vast majority of his shots in the PNR are pull-ups and C&S 2pt and it’s not just because of the guard play.
Here are some other bigs efficiency in the PNR:
Jakob Poeltl:: 1.19(64.6% eFG) on 4.7
Nikola Vucevic: 1.18(59.7%) on 4.6
Victor Wembanyama: 1.17(57.3%) on 3.8
Deandre Ayton: 1.08(58.3%) on 3.5
Jonas Valanciunas: 1.21(58.8%) on 2.7
Ivica Zubac: 1.07(60.6%) on 2.5
Nic Claxton: 0.96(57.9%) on 2.0
John Collins: 1.31(65.2%) on 1.6
Lauri Markkanen: 1.50(78.9%) on 1.5
Donovan Clingan: 1.36(61.1%) on 1.3
Jalen Duren: 1.41(81.8%) on 1.1
Isaiah Stewart: 1.67(87.5%) on 1.1
A lot of those bigs are in the worst possible context surrounded by worse teammates and spacing and are somehow way more efficient. We’ve also seen Adebayo be more efficient as the roll man when he had worse teammates. That’s not the factor that plays the biggest hand here.
Here are his pull up 2s and C&S 2s off the PNR:
Notice how many times on those possessions, he doesn’t roll strong. Instead, he holds his position for too long, waits, or immediately rolls into a position that gets him a pull-up.
On numerous occasions, he has both the space and the advantage against the dropping big to roll hard but simply doesn’t. That’s on him and not the guard.
How can a big even attempt to get looks at the rim if he holds his screen and drifts into the elbow? There needs to be a change in approach. This is something that it feels like Adebayo has hinted to that he doesn’t want to be doing that kind of diving/rolling hard and banging bodies. This method is a good way to avoid that and settle for jumpers.
You also have these:
These are better looks. I much prefer these floaters and push shots. There can be an improvement in trying to muscle your way through for an easier shot, but more often than not, this is a good look that takes what the defense gives you. The shooting slump affects this area the most.
He still ends up rolling to the rim:
This mostly happens when there is that advantage of the ball handler drawing two on the ball, but even in those instances, you can see at times Duncan making the pass too far expecting Adebayo to roll quicker. The same habits sneak up here, too. Even when there is a clear advantage and runway to the rim, there is that slight sense of hesitancy and looking to roll into the mid-range area instead.
The biggest criticism is how at times the possessions that start as a roll man end in a typical isolation in the post:
Because of the tendency to look to hunt those pull-ups and C&S, he will obviously roll into similar spots on the court. If the shot isn’t there right away, that will just end up with an ISO/Post for Adebayo.
All that does is give him more self-creation shots. Even though it would be a similar shot in a similar spot, that’s a different kind of shot in rhythm versus having to create that look yourself.
That compounds and hurts his offense, as well as the teams’.
Finally, we have the pop 3pt:
This is a new thing and right now, I don’t care much for the makes or misses. It would be great if he could improve in this area slightly. At least be an average shooter on low volume.
What’s more important right now is that it’s an option in the first place. This is an actual thing right now. It’s not thinking about whether can he pop for 3s anymore. The only thing that needs to continue to improve is the confidence.
Similar to the spot-ups, this is simply a thing that can only improve with time and him working out whatever is going on in his head.
But right now, it does give something new and different. This is the best counter to some of the ways the defenses defend those PNRs and it’s trading what would’ve been a C&S 2pt to a spot up 3pt.
So, that is it. This is everything you need to know about what has been going on with Bam Adebayo.
A lot of it can be explained as a simple small-size shooting slump, which definitely is valid and it is what’s happening. This strange, out-of-the-ordinary slump is the reason why everything feels so much worse than it is.
But there are also other factors in play as to why he’s in that slump in the first place and why he hasn’t affected much offensively in other ways.
The first factor is coaching and how they have looked to use Adebayo and integrate him into the offense that has changed. The way they get him going has changed. It’s no longer feeding Adebayo to start the game, as they have done last year. That changes a player’s rhythm and could be a significant factor in this slow start. That’s also on the coach to change and on the player to look to adapt.
The biggest reason, though is that his game hasn’t changed at all compared to the last two seasons.
It is still the same old isolation/post-heavy offense from Adebayo whenever he is involved. That hasn’t changed much with around 30% of his offense being that. Those shots are tough. It’s tough to live on such a shot diet, especially on jumpers and fadeaways. Those shots are more likely to be up and down, especially if there is a change in rhythm. There’s nothing that can come easy for him in this area.
When you look at these PNRs, it’s the same pattern. That’s also where he’s not helping himself if he’s going through a slow stretch. These shots are similar and are taken in similar spots. None of those shots are also easy and are more susceptible to hot/cold streaks.
Having built his game over the last two seasons that relies on tough shot-making, it’s no surprise that he’s going through this. This can easily be explained by fatigue, too.
There are simple, valid explanations for all of this, ones that are also encouraging that he will bounce back, but that doesn’t change the fact or negate that his playstyle is an issue, too.
His reluctance to dive hard and go through contact. Hunting shots in the mid-range. Settling for jumpers and fadeaways against mismatches. Not being an active off-ball player. These are all connected in his slow start that goes beyond just a shooting slump.
That’s why even when he bounces back to his usual 45-50% self on a lot of those shots, that won’t be a fix. That’s a band-aid that doesn’t address the overall issue in his offensive game. He will be back, and that will likely be a cause to feed him even more finally and it’s the same pattern.
So, what’s going on with Adebayo is mostly a shooting slump that will bounce back but that shouldn’t also be a reason to go on as normal going forward.
And if you somehow managed to get to the end… Damn, you must be a sicko because who wants to go through so much stats and film about Bam Adebayo. But appreciate you and if you enjoyed this kind of content, be sure to subscribe!