Miami Heat: Bam Adebayo Will Contend, As He Might Be The League’s Best
If we are focusing on the Defensive Player Of The Year award, itself, it’s going to be difficult but not impossible. Normally, he would have missed too much time but this year, everyone is missing time.
The front runner was and still might be Draymond Green, but now Green is missing a significant chunk of games as well. Another usual suspect in the race is Rudy Gobert, a three-time winner of the award, who will be a victim of voter fatigue as well as his missed time.
This gives Bam a path. He has very talented defensive players around him but that shouldn’t be held against him.
The Heat are a very switchable team and with Adebayo playing the five position, but also switching onto guards when needed, it means that he’s doing a lot of the heavy lifting in various spots on the floor.
Awards are finicky and should be an afterthought to winning. That’s the correct way to approach it and exactly how the Heat are.
You can be sure of it. They only care about one award and that’s the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
If their spectacular play garnishes them some additional hardware along the way— then so be it. That, itself, could be exactly why Bam is a front runner for the DPOY though.
He cares about winning basketball and plays as such. It also just so happens— that his brand of winning defense is among the, if not the very, best in the league.