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Bam Adebayo’s Historic Night Didn’t Impress Everyone in the NBA

Adebayo’s record-breaking performance on Tuesday night was met with plenty of praise—but there were some who weren’t impressed.
Liam McKeone|
Bam Adebayo scored 83 points against the Wizards on Tuesday night.
Bam Adebayo scored 83 points against the Wizards on Tuesday night. | Rhona Wise-Imagn Images

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Miami Heat

Tuesday night served as a good reminder that anything can happen on any given night of NBA basketball.

On what was an otherwise interesting but not all that notable evening, Bam Adebayo scored 83 points against the Wizards. Eighty-three freaking points! He passed Kobe Bryant for the second-most points in a single game behind Wilt Chamberlain’s famous 100-point outing. It took Adebayo 42 minutes, 43 free throw attempts, 43 shots from the field and some intentional fouling down the stretch to maximize possessions—but he did it.

To call the performance shocking doesn’t even begin to touch upon the unbelievable nature of what the Heat star pulled off. In the modern NBA any player can pop off for a big point total on the right night but so much has to go right to get anywhere near Bryant’s famous record. To surpass it? It’s a true anomaly. Especially from a center whose best play to this point in his career has come on the defensive side of the ball. Adebayo broke his own personal career high before halftime and went on to score an additional 40 points!

You get the picture: words struggle to capture the astonishing achievement. And for the most part, Adebayo’s colleagues around the NBA agree. The Miami center was showered in praise from all directions on Tuesday night as just about everybody admired the great heights he managed to reach.

But there were some detractors around the league. Adebayo’s ludicrously high free throw count (his 34 makes and 43 attempts from the charity stripe are both NBA records) and how the end of the game played out have been nearly as significant talking points as his total output.

Take Rockets coach Ime Udoka, for example. He was asked about Adebayo’s big night after leading Houston to a win over the Raptors, and his answer gave off a rather ... unimpressed air.

“First thing you think is how, you know, not because of him but because of the way he plays. I saw he only made [sic] six threes but 40 free throws or something like that,” Udoka said. “Tells the story right there. And the Washington Wizards.”

Adebayo can’t control who he plays nor the whistle of the referees. But it is safe to say Udoka’s points about his big night coming against a bad team and on the back of a record number of free throws will be brought up quite a bit in discussions about his performance.

The Rockets coach wasn’t the only NBA figure to express a dissenting opinion on just how impressive Adebayo’s performance was. 76ers wing Kelly Oubre spoke on the matter after beating the Grizzlies. Unlike Udoka he started by giving Adebayo his flowers before acknowledging he was “salty” the Heat center bested Bryant. Then he pointed out Joel Embiid scored nearly as many points in a more efficient fashion a few years ago.

“It’s definitely legendary. The box score, the number. Shoutout to Bam, right? He’s implementing himself in history. I’m kind of salty he bested Kobe, he’s one of my favorite players for sure.

“But I’ma just say this, man. Joel did it efficiently, and he did it in three quarters.”

Back in 2024 Embiid scored 70 points for Philadelphia against the Spurs and had 59 points through three quarters. In his final statline the superstar made 24 of his 41 shot attempts and “only” attempted 23 free throws, sinking 21. But, more efficient or not, he wound up 13 points short of Adebayo’s new career high.

Other players sipmly didn’t seem all that interested in Adebayo’s achievement. Suns guard Collin Gillespie admitted with a cheeky grin that he didn’t care at all about the 83-point outing.

Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama gave off a similar energy while speaking to the media after leading San Antonio to a win over the Celtics with an excellent performance of his own. When asked if Adebayo’s showing gives him any inspiration to chase scoring records, Wembanyama said there’s “plenty of inspiration” to look up to.

“Yeah I saw,” the star center said. “I think we're in a league where's there’s plenty of inspiration to look up to. But yeah. I saw.”

It would be fascinating to get Wembanyama in particular to speak on the subject unfiltered given he praised “ethical basketball” earlier this season. But for now he played it cool and wasn’t willing to go much further than acknowledge he saw it.

An interesting mix of reactions from the NBA.

Why Adebayo’s record-breaking night is drawing criticism

In the modern sports world, everything is up for debate. And there’s already plenty of fans and media members willing to debate just how impressive this was from Adebayo. Some, such as ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, are going so far as to rip the performance. The NBA reporter said it was “hideous, disgusting basketball” on Wednesday morning and stated he’d rather watch Wembanyama score 39 in an “ethical” manner than Adebayo score 83 in a “hideous” manner.

It’s natural for some of us to wonder why that is. Adebayo scored 83 points! Only one player has ever scored more! Isn’t that cool enough to collectively admire?

Well, apparently not. The primary criticism surrounding Adebayo’s big night is twofold: the number of free throw attempts he took and the Heat extending the game in the fourth quarter to get him the record.

Adebayo took more free throw shots than anybody in NBA history. At the end of the game, his team was willing to intentionally foul the Wizards in order to ensure he’d get more possessions. When Adebayo got into the high 70s for his point total he basically shot the ball at every opportunity, even when he was triple-teamed and several feet beyond the three-point arc. He earned the vast majority of his points in a standard fashion but the last 10 or so were the result of a collective effort by the Heat to get him the ball in a position to score.

Does that tarnish the legacy of his 83-point game? That’s for you to decide.

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Liam McKeone
LIAM MCKEONE

Liam McKeone is a senior writer for the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He has been in the industry as a content creator since 2017, and prior to joining SI in May 2024, McKeone worked for NBC Sports Boston and The Big Lead. In addition to his work as a writer, he has hosted the Press Pass Podcast covering sports media and The Big Stream covering pop culture. A graduate of Fordham University, he is always up for a good debate and enjoys loudly arguing about sports, rap music, books and video games. McKeone has been a member of the National Sports Media Association since 2020.

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