Bam Adebayo scores 83 points: Stop complaining about free throws, just enjoy the moment
Bam Adebayo scored 83 points in Tuesday’s NBA game. I have to repeat it because that number is simply unbelievable to some netizens. Bam Adebayo scored 83 points in Tuesday’s NBA game. By any measure, this is one of the most incredible single-game performances in NBA history. Michael Jordan never scored 83 points in an NBA game. LeBron James never scored 83 points in an NBA game either. This player, who holds the second-highest scoring record in NBA history, had a career-high of only 41 points before Tuesday’s crucial game against the Washington Wizards. He doubled his personal record overnight!
This should have been a celebration. A homegrown but often underrated star led a depleted Jimmy Butler Jersey team to historic heights during an inconsistent season. This should have been fodder for a sports movie. But sports movies are long dead. They disappeared with the advent of social media, and what are people best at in the social media age?
“This is an insult to Kobe’s 81 points,” a viral tweet read, garnering nearly 9,000 likes at the time of writing. “Mickey Mouse 81 points,” someone texted me after Adebayo tied Kobe’s record. When the Los Angeles Lakers hosted the Minnesota Timberwolves, arena announcer Lawrence Tant called Adebayo’s 83-point outburst “a disheartening footnote in NBA history.”
Meanwhile, I’m sitting here dumbfounded because—sorry, I have to repeat myself—someone scored 83 points in an NBA game! This is a historic moment! It’s one of the most incredible things you can ever see on a basketball court! So, what are people complaining about? Let’s delve into it.
Yes, Bam Adebayo broke the NBA record with 36 free throws made and 43 free throw attempts. As of Tuesday, Adrian Dantley held the NBA record for most free throws made in a single game with 28. This means Adebayo scored eight more points from the free-throw line than the previous record holder. One of those record holders was Wilt Chamberlain—though no one mentions his 100-point free-throw record in a single game. The other was Dantley, who scored 46 points in that game. Eight more free throws simply cannot bridge that gap. Before Adebayo, only seven games in NBA history had seen a player make 25 free throws in a single game. Besides Chamberlain, the highest scorer among them is Michael Jordan with 58 points. If Adebayo had only tied the all-time record, his final score would have been 75 points, dropping him from second to fourth place on the all-time scoring list.
Even Houston Rockets head coach Ime Udoka admitted that this last point explains the game’s outcome. Yes, the Wizards are indeed weak. These kinds of games often happen against weaker teams. Wilt Chamberlain once scored 100 points against the 29-51 New York Knicks, and Kobe Bryant once scored 81 points against the 27-55 Toronto Raptors. Chamberlain and Devin Booker are the only two players in history to score 70+ points against teams with a winning record in the regular season. Other weak teams exist as well. This week, no one scored 80 points against the even weaker Brooklyn Nets. Other teams in the league have played the Wizards this season, and the previous highest scoring record against them was Donovan Mitchell’s 48 points.
So where have all the other games with 80+ points gone this season? And those with 70+ points? Are we even seeing 60-point games? No. The season’s highest score is Nikola Jokic’s 56 points in overtime. Wilt Chamberlain once scored 100 points in the 1961-62 season. Back then, teams averaged just over 108 field goal attempts per game. This season, they’re averaging only 89. While the Heat are the fastest-paced team in the NBA, the pace of the game back then made basketball a completely different sport. If Bam Adebayo benefited from the era, so did Chamberlain.
“His efficiency is ridiculously low; he misses more shots than he makes!”
I have to admit, Andre Iguodala Jersey‘s a bit funny to see Kobe fans suddenly become efficiency police—after all, he’s a legend who attempted 50 shots in a single game. But I want to ask: who else in Miami should be taking shots? Tyler Herro, Andrew Wiggins, Norman Powell, Kyle El Wall, and Nikola Jovic all rested on Tuesday. Against Washington’s defense, there was truly no other player who could be a primary offensive option. This was destined to be a night of high usage and potentially low efficiency—except he took his shot attempts to an epic level. Did the Heat deliberately force the ball to him in the final stages? Yes, absolutely. They had a chance to make NBA history, so naturally, they were going all out.
