Miami Heat: The Wheel Shouldn’t Be Reinvented, But Playmaker Bam Has Value
When you look at Bam’s assists totals and the lack of volume amongst the numbers, some of it is because of what was mentioned before. It’s not necessarily his job forthright, especially with Kyle Lowry‘s addition but it could be if they want it to.
Also, it’s a simple action and can be schemed for in the playoffs but that doesn’t mean it isn’t useful to keep defenses on their toes, while also hoping to find more success beyond that. DHOs are hard to guard, in general, while the Heat caught the best switching defense in the league sleeping on a couple too.
Granted, the Celtics were missing one of their best defensive players, Robert Williams, while you also consider that nearly all of those assists came when Al Horford didn’t switch and remained in drop coverage. However, you can’t take away from the fact that the play is still there to be made.
That could prove to be useful down the stretch, growing to be more of a dynamic when it needs to be in the playoffs. You have that, while we also know Bam has a little more to offer.
His assist to usage ratio was over 1.05 in the previous two seasons, while this year, it’s down to 0.729 per Cleaningtheglass.com. Of course, there are reasons for that too though.
As stated, the addition of Kyle Lowry takes some of the playmaking load off of the rest of the team and it’s been a strange year, overall, when you think about the guys that have been sick or injured. Needless to say, all those variables matter.
But that doesn’t take away from the fact that Bam made the plays and the Heat won the game because that matters too. What’s important here is that running the offense through Adebayo has some major benefits and for a team that has struggled with clutch offense, at times, they need to be opportunistic with every advantage they can get.
All in all, this was just a fun roundabout way of saying Bam assisted more than usual against Boston, but it could be more important than we realized on the surface.