Earlier this week, Bam Adebayo spoke to the media on a number of topics. Among those topics was which young player on the Miami Heat roster to watch for.
Bam Adebayo was present and accounted for at a meet-and-greet prior to a cheeseburger eating contest against Takeru Kobayashi in Miami on Wednesday. The Miami Heat recently picked up his fourth-year option, locking him in until 2021.
Adebayo spoke to the media on a variety of topics, perhaps the most intriguing being on the topic of the Heat’s youth. Speaking to the Miami Herald’s Anthony Chiang, he revealed who has been showing the most in team workouts.
Speaking of Kendrick Nunn, he had this to say:
"“[He’s] really stood out. He’s still progressing and just getting better as the days go by.”"
After the summer league performance Nunn put up in July, it shouldn’t come as much surprise to see that he seems to have developed quite a bit since last season. While a great summer league showing is less informative than a poor summer league performance (if you’re good in summer league, great, you were supposed to be. If you were bad at summer league, you’re probably not an NBA player at all), his All-Summer League showing was strong nonetheless.
Over six games between Las Vegas and Sacramento, he averaged 22 points, 4.3 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 1.7 assists in 31 minutes per game. He had shooting splits of .505/.385/.950 over this stretch.
While the Miami Heat can’t afford to put much stock in standout summer league runs, they’re in a position where they will likely need all hands on deck. Coming off a season in which they had crippling injuries up and down their roster, they have assembled a team for 2019-20 which may be even more injury-prone, and they don’t have the cap flexibility to go get more talent if things go wrong.
Thanks to the sign-and-trade of Jimmy Butler, the Heat must stay under the hard cap, and they’re right up against it. What they have is likely what they’ll be working with, barring a surprise trade, so the potential emergence of Kendrick Nunn would be a tremendous development for their chances to get back to the playoffs.