Bam Adebayo

Southeast Notes: Hornets, Banchero, Clingan, Adebayo

The Hornets have named Shelly Cayette-Weston as their president of business operations, according to a team press release. Cayette-Weston, who will join the organization on July 1, has spent 12 years with the Cavaliers, including the last two as executive VP & chief commercial officer.

“I think my strength really centers around relationships and that’s the start of it,” Cayette-Weston told Roderick Boone of the Charlotte Observer. “And I think that Charlotte is a great market for that, to continue expanding on the great relationships that wehave already and continue to build on in this market. I think from a strategic standpoint, I’ve been able to create consistent success in Cleveland.” 

We have more from the Southeast Division:

  • Paolo Banchero expects a less hectic summer than the last two years as the Magic‘s star forward prepares for next season after leading them to the playoffs. “Really just going to try to get back to the basics this summer, get in the best shape I can, get back to the stuff that got me here,” he told Jason Beede of the Orlando Sentinel.
  • Donovan Clingan is “Brook Lopez 2.0,” according to The Athletic’s David Aldridge, and that’s why the Wizards should select the UConn center with the No. 2 overall pick. Clingan is 7’2”, 280 pounds and as close to a sure thing as any team can find in this draft filled with uncertainty, according to Adridge, who adds that the big man will provide a defensive presence, set solid screens and score inside, plus he’s got nimble feet for someone of his stature.
  • Heat center Bam Adebayo is entering his eighth season this fall but he still has to “expand his game,” according to team president Pat Riley. Among the potential areas for growth for Adebayo on the offensive end, according to the Miami Herald’s Anthony Chiang, are refining his post-up package, finding ways to generate more shots around the rim and making the 3-point shot an even bigger part of his game.

And-Ones: Towns, Media Rights, California Classic, Howard

Timberwolves forward/center Karl-Anthony Towns has been named the NBA’s Social Justice Champion for the 2023/24 season, the league announced in a press release.

The four-time All-Star is a voting rights advocate and supported Minnesota’s Restore the Vote bill last year, which “restores the right to vote to thousands of formerly incarcerated individuals.” Towns also advocates for changes to the criminal justice and education systems in the U.S.

Heat center Bam Adebayo, Pelicans guard CJ McCollum, Thunder wing Lindy Waters and Clippers guard Russell Westbrook were the other finalists.

Here’s more from around the basketball world:

  • On an earnings call, TNT (Warner Bros. Discovery) CEO David Zaslav was cautiously optimistic about retaining media rights to NBA games, per Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic. “We’ve had a lot of time to prepare for this negotiation, and we have strategies in place for the various potential outcomes,” Zaslav said. “However, now is not the time to discuss any of this since we are in active negotiations with the league. And under our current deal with the NBA, we have matching rights that allow us to match third-party offers before the NBA enters into an agreement with them.”
  • Zaslav’s comments came on the heels of various reports saying NBC has submitted a $2.5 billion bid to be the league’s third media rights partner, joining ESPN/ABC (Disney) and Amazon, which already have framework deals in place. According to Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal, NBC is still viewed as the frontrunner, ahead of TNT.
  • The 2024 California Classic will be co-hosted by the Kings and Warriors, as Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee relays. California’s Summer League – a prelude to Las Vegas Summer League – will take place from July 6-10 and will feature 12 total games. The Kings, Hornets and Spurs will play in Sacramento and the Warriors, Lakers and Heat will play in San Francisco. Sacramento will head to the Chase Center to face Golden State on July 10 to wrap up the event, Anderson writes.
  • Former NBA guard Markus Howard was granted permission to play for Puerto Rico ahead of the country’s Olympic qualifying tournament this summer, the federation announced in a press release. The former Marquette star led the EuroLeague in scoring while playing for Spain’s Baskonia this season, BasketNews notes. “We are very happy to welcome Markus to our national team,” said Carlos Arroyo, general manager of Puerto Rico’s national team. “Markus has become one of the best players in Europe, and for us, it is a luxury to have him. His offensive level will raise the expectations of our team.”

Southeast Notes: Young, Adebayo, Heat, Kispert

As rumors continue to swirl about his future with the Hawks, Trae Young has changed agents, announcing (via Twitter) that he has signed with CAA Sports. He was previously represented by Klutch Sports.

Marc Stein reported last month that Young’s father Rayford Young recently became a certified NBA agent, but it’s unclear if Rayford will be part of his son’s group of reps at CAA.

A three-time All-Star, Young is coming off another strong statistical season, having averaged 25.7 points and a career-high 10.8 assists in 36.0 minutes per game across 54 starts for Atlanta. However, the Hawks have posted a sub-.500 record across the last three seasons and have only won three total playoff games during that stretch, so there’s an expectation that major changes are coming to the roster this summer, possibly affecting Young or backcourt mate Dejounte Murray.

Here’s more from around the Southeast:

  • After finishing third in Defensive Player of the Year voting, Bam Adebayo‘s last chance to meet the super-max performance criteria this spring is to claim a spot on one of the league’s three All-NBA teams, notes Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. If he doesn’t earn All-NBA honors, the Heat big man will still be eligible for a very lucrative contract extension this summer, worth up to approximately $165MM over three years. However, a super-max deal would be worth significantly more than that ($245MM over four years), and Adebayo could still meet the criteria with an All-NBA nod or DPOY win in 2025, so there’s no guarantee he’ll pursue an extension this summer.
  • Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald believes it’s time to consider a roster overhaul in Miami, arguing that the Heat‘s current core isn’t good enough to win a title and that the “root-canal offense” needs to change. Jackson suggests that the front office should seriously weigh the possibility of trading Jimmy Butler or making a “significant lateral move” if the team’s non-Butler and non-Adebayo assets aren’t enough to acquire a third star.
  • While Deni Avdija‘s breakout performance received more attention, third-year Wizards wing Corey Kispert may have raised his long-term ceiling in 2023/24 by becoming more of a three-level scoring threat instead of just a three-point shooter, writes Bijan Todd of Monumental Sports Network. According to Todd, new Wizards general manager Will Dawkins and president Michael Winger spoke to Kispert before last season about expanding his game and getting to the rim more often. “[Attacking the rim] changed everything. It changed everything. It seemed like my first two years, if I put the ball on the floor, the other team was just cool with it. That’s what they wanted me to do,” Kispert said. “But now it felt a little bit different. It felt like there were multiple layers to what teams had to do to stop what I was trying to do. Just because I put the ball on the deck doesn’t mean the job’s done for the defense anymore.”

Rudy Gobert Named Defensive Player Of Year For Fourth Time

Rudy Gobert has been named the Defensive Player of the Year for the fourth time in his career, the NBA announced on Tuesday (via Twitter).

The Timberwolves center joins Dikembe Mutombo and Ben Wallace as the only four-time winners of the award. Gobert also claimed the award in 2018, 2019, and 2021 when he played for Utah.

Spurs big man Victor Wembanyama, who was unanimously voted the Rookie of the Year on Tuesday, finished second in the voting, with the Heat‘s Bam Adebayo a distant third.

Gobert was the league’s second-leading rebounder (12.9 per game) and sixth-leading shot-blocker (2.1). More significantly, he anchored a Timberwolves defense that held opponents to a league-low 106.5 points per game during the regular season. Minnesota was also best in defensive field goal percentage, limiting opponents to 39.0 percent shooting.

Gobert received 72 of a possible 99 first-place votes while compiling 433 points. Wembanyama, who was the league’s top shot-blocker at 3.6 per game, received 19 first-place votes and earned 245 points.

Adebayo received three first-place votes and wound up with 91 points, eight more than fourth-place finisher Anthony Davis of the Lakers (four first-place votes).

Pelicans forward Herbert Jones finished fifth and Celtics guard Jrue Holiday, who notched the other first-place vote, was sixth. The full voting results can be found here.

Southeast Notes: Magic, Harris, Wizards, Adebayo, Butler

The playoff experience that the young Magic players were excited to get now includes the intense pressure of a Game 7, writes Jason Beede of The Orlando Sentinel. Orlando faces Cleveland this afternoon with the season on the line for both squads, and Wendell Carter Jr. believes he and his teammates are in the right frame of mind for a victory.

“We didn’t come all this way to just lose a Game 7,” Carter said.

Beede notes that for the Magic to win, they’ll have to find a reliable source of offense. Orlando has lost all three games at Cleveland so far and has the second-worst offensive rating on the road in the playoffs, slightly ahead of the Cavaliers.

“We kind of look at it as another game,” Carter said. “There’s a little bit more urgency, of course, but we never want to get too high or too low for games like this. That’s what the great players do. As a unit, we’re super excited to be in this position.”

There’s more from the Southeast Division:

  • The Magic will have Gary Harris available for Game 7, Beede tweets. The veteran swingman had been listed as questionable after missing Game 6 with a strained right hamstring. Coach Jamahl Mosley declined to tell reporters whether Harris will start or come off the bench.
  • This offseason marks the next step in the Wizards‘ rebuilding process that team president Michael Winger and general manager Will Dawkins began last summer, observes Chase Hughes of Monumental Sports Network. After they were hired, the focus was on ridding the team of high-priced vets such as Bradley Beal and Kristaps Porzingis. Now they’ll try to build up the roster, starting with another high lottery pick in this year’s draft. “It won’t be an easier an offseason, it will be a [different offseason]. We did a lot of heavy lifting last offseason and we moved humongous features of the organization,” Winger said. “We don’t necessarily have to do that this offseason. So, this offseason is probably a lot of incremental moves whereas last offseason was a few significant moves.”
  • Ira Winderman of The Sun Sentinel looks at important dates for the Heat‘s offseason. Two of the most significant are July 6, when Bam Adebayo will become eligible for a three-year, $165MM extension (which could be much larger if he wins Defensive Player of the Year or is named to an All-NBA team) and July 7, when Jimmy Butler will be eligible for a two-year, $112.9MM extension.

Heat Notes: Butler, Herro, Trade Assets, Bam

All-NBA Heat forward Jimmy Butler is expected to seek a two-year, maximum-salary contract extension with Miami, worth approximately $113MM, before the start of the 2024/25 season, a source tells Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald.

The theoretical deal would kick in for 2025/26. Butler has a $52.4MM player option for that year, which the extension would replace.

If Miami opts to not extend Butler, Chiang argues, the team could be faced with an unhappy star. The 34-year-old swingman led the Heat to two NBA Finals appearances – and an additional appearance in the Eastern Finals – during his first four seasons with the club, though he has dealt with a series of injuries, including an MCL sprain that knocked him entirely out of the playoffs this year.

Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald speculates about the potential trade haul Miami could receive in exchange for its best player should the team opt not to extend Butler.

There’s more out of Miami:

  • Following a first-round playoff elimination marred by injuries, the Heat face a variety of questions about their future this offseason. The biggest, Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel contends, surrounds what Miami brass wants to do with shooting guard Tyler Herro. Winderman wonders if Miami will look to trade the 2022 Sixth Man of the Year this summer, or if it will consider demoting him back to a bench role going forward. Herro is owed $93MM across the remaining three years of his deal.
  • With the Heat set to explore the trade market this summer, Jackson takes stock of the club’s movable assets, consulting with a rival scout on the value of those pieces. The scout criticized Herro’s inconsistency both as a player and as an injury risk. As far as young players still on rookie scale deals go, the scout is high on the ceilings of forwards Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Nikola Jovic. The scout also addressed the contracts of guards Duncan Robinson and Terry Rozier, Miami being a potential trade destination for Cavaliers All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell, and more.
  • One fascinating potential internal change the Heat could consider, according to one alum who still works for the franchise, is shifting All-Star center Bam Adebayo from center to power forward, writes Jackson in another piece. While on the ESPN program “First Take” this week, 20-year Miami vet Udonis Haslem explained why he thinks the 6’9″ big man could benefit from a positional move. “He can guard all five positions but he would have even more of a matchup at the 4 position where we can post him up and do different things with him,” Haslem said. “Go for a center and possibly another scoring guard.” Haslem is currently the Heat’s vice president of basketball development, and also hosts a podcast with fellow ex-Heat champion Mike Miller.

Celtics Notes: Porzingis, Horford, White, Tatum

Holding a commanding 3-1 lead against an injury-riddled Heat team, the Celtics may not need any more contributions from Kristaps Porzingis to get through the first round of the playoffs. But Boston’s odds of winning a title this spring would take a serious hit without a healthy Porzingis available in future rounds.

After the Celtics announced on Tuesday that Porzingis would miss Game 5 on Wednesday due to a right soleus (calf) strain and Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the big man is expected to miss multiple games, Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe clarifies (via Twitter) that no one considers it to be a season-ending injury.

According to Himmelsbach, the Celtics have yet to provide a specific timeline for Porzingis’ recovery and potential return because they want to see how he responds to treatment first.

Appearing on FanDuel’s Run it Back show on Wednesday morning (Twitter video link), Shams Charania of The Athletic said he expects the club to treat the soleus strain like a “week-to-week” injury, suggesting that Porzingis might end up missing just a week or two, though there’s a chance he’ll be sidelined for longer than that.

Here’s more on the Celtics as they prepare for a possible close-out game at home vs. the Heat:

  • For as long as Porzingis is unavailable, Al Horford is expected to move into the starting lineup, with Luke Kornet and Xavier Tillman acting as his primary backups at the five, writes Jay King of The Athletic. As King observes, Horford played 21 of the final 24 minutes in Game 4 following Porzingis’ exit, but that level of workload likely won’t be sustainable for the 37-year-old on a regular basis going forward, so the team will need effective minutes from its reserves.
  • Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Jrue Holiday, and Porzingis combined to shoot just 17-of-47 (36.2%) from the field in Game 4, but Derrick White‘s 38 points on 15-of-26 shooting helped propel the team to victory. In a separate story for The Athletic, King takes a look at White’s career night and details why his teammates want to see him continue to seek out his own offense. “When he’s being aggressive it just opens everything up,” Tatum said. “Whatever they’re trying to take away, maybe for myself, when your teammates are hitting shots and being aggressive and attacking closeouts and making plays, it really makes us very, very hard to guard. You want everybody to be assertive and be aggressive and try to make plays. It just makes us a better team.”
  • As we relayed on Tuesday, Tatum turned an ankle during the fourth quarter of Game 4 when he came down on Bam Adebayo‘s foot while attempting a jump shot after a whistle (Twitter video link). The star forward was ultimately fine, but Horford wasn’t happy about Adebayo contesting Tatum’s shot and getting into his landing area during a dead ball. “I know that we get to playing around and trying to contest shots after fouls and things like that, but there’s levels to contest,” Horford said, per Souichi Terada of MassLive.com. “And if a guy shooting and the play is over with, just kind of let him be. I know he’s trying to compete over there, but I was just mad. I don’t want to see any of my guys get hurt or anything like that. Thankfully, JT is fine, but it could have been bad.”

Heat Notes: Adebayo, Herro, Rozier, Richardson

With Jimmy Butler sidelined by an MCL sprain, the Heat are comfortable relying on Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro to be their on-court leaders, writes Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. Both players responded when they were asked to expand their games in Wednesday’s surprise victory at Boston. Adebayo scored 21 points on 9-of-13 shooting, grabbed 10 rebounds and frequently served as the primary defender on Jayson Tatum.

“He had big responsibilities defensively,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Then on the road, yes, it was really important that we had a place where we could just throw the ball and just kind of get settled, especially when they would go on runs or the crowd would get in it and he produced. He was great when we needed to get it settled and he went right to his spot and was able to get some relief points for us.”

Herro took a larger role in running the offense, handing out a career-high 14 assists to go with 24 points and five rebounds. Ten of his assists came on three-pointers as Miami set a franchise record by sinking 23 threes in a playoff game.

“We need his aggressiveness, we need his scoring, we need his shooting, we need his play-making,” Spoelstra said. “Depending on the possession, it can be any one of those things. But he was good on both ends of the court. He was very good defensively, he was competing on that end, a lot of winning things.”

There’s more from Miami:

  • A greater emphasis on three-point shooting was one of the adjustments Spoelstra and his staff made after the Game 1 loss, Chiang adds in a separate story. The Celtics were sending extra defenders at the Adebayo-Herro pick-and-roll, which created open shots from beyond the arc. Defensively, the Heat concentrated on switching rather than the combination of blitzing ball-handlers and drop coverage they used in the opener.
  • Terry Rozier will miss his ninth straight game today with a neck issue, but he hasn’t been ruled out for the rest of the first-round series, Chiang states in a mailbag column. Rozier has undergone numerous tests to determine what’s causing the neck pain, and the Heat are being “very cautious” about his condition, Chiang adds. Rozier was a starter before being sidelined, but Chiang doesn’t believe he’ll automatically be inserted back into the starting lineup if he’s able to return.
  • In the same piece, Chiang says it’s likely that Josh Richardson will pick up his $3.1MM player option and return to the team next season. Richardson owns a house in Miami and enjoys playing there, and Chiang points out that his market value will be limited after undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery in March.

Southeast Notes: Adebayo, Martin, Redick, Hornets, Magic, Suggs

While Bam Adebayo is probably a long shot to be named the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year for this season, the Heat big man is one of the finalists for the first time in his career, writes Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. Prior to this spring, Adebayo had never finished higher than fourth in Defensive Player of the Year voting.

“They’re actually watching games, they’re actually looking at games,” Adebayo said of the award voters. “They’re paying attention to what I do. It’s not only what shows up in the stat book.”

As Chiang writes, Adebayo blocked just 0.9 shots per game in 2023/24, well below the averages posted by fellow finalists Rudy Gobert and Victor Wembanyama. However, he’s capable of guarding positions all over the court and has adapted his game to new personnel and new coverages with players in and out of Miami’s lineup all season long due to injuries.

“Man, I can play in any coverage,” Adebayo said. “That’s pretty much the dynamic that I have. I can play any coverage. If you want to be in drop, we can play drop. If you want me in zone, we can play zone. Blitz, switching, being able to be on the one or two option, being able to be the help guy. I’ve been in many different roles throughout my career.”

“What it shows you is that he’s becoming a defensive technician,” Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra said of his defensive anchor. “That’s a different level of expertise.”

Here’s more from around the Southeast:

  • As Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel relays, Spoelstra and the Heat downplayed the outside reactions that Caleb Martin‘s hard foul on Jayson Tatum in Game 1 of their series elicited, particularly from Celtics analyst Brian Scalabrine, who called it a “dirty play” that warranted a suspension. “It was an irrational assessment in our view in what actually happened,” Spoelstra said. “The players are fine. All the outside noise or anything like that is not going to decide this series or the game. This is good, clean, tough, physical playoff basketball — and it always has been with Boston and us.”
  • ESPN analyst and former NBA sharpshooter J.J. Redick is a “serious candidate” for the Hornets‘ head coaching job, Shams Charania of The Athletic said on FanDuel’s Run it Back show (Twitter video link). According to Charania, Redick has a “strong desire” to move into coaching and could end up interviewing for more jobs besides Charlotte’s this spring.
  • While the Magic‘s long-term outlook remains very promising, the weaknesses of their young roster have been exposed in the first two playoff games against Cleveland, according to Josh Robbins of The Athletic, who cites inexperience and a lack of shooting and play-making as shortcomings for Orlando. “Our defense is what we thought it was, but it ain’t going to win us a game,” Paolo Banchero said. “We’ve got to be better on the other end.”
  • Magic guard Jalen Suggs is “doing better” after suffering a left knee injury in Game 2, per head coach Jamahl Mosley, who told reporters today that he expects Suggs to be available for Game 3 (Twitter link via Jason Beede of The Orlando Sentinel).

Heat Notes: Butler, Jovic, Jaquez, Wright, Adebayo

As they look to bounce back after a Game 1 loss in Boston, the Heat can’t count on Jimmy Butler to return at some point later in the first round to give them a boost. While the team hasn’t provided any sort of official timetable on Butler’s recovery from an MCL sprain, Shams Charania of The Athletic said on FanDuel’s Run it Back show (Twitter video link) that the star swingman is going to remain on the shelf for a while.

“It’s crazy to me that Jimmy Butler played three quarters with what I’m hearing now was a severe MCL sprain,” Charania said. “He is not going to be back in this series. This is a rehab that’s go at least one month — could be two months of rehab.

“… Thankfully for him it wasn’t the ACL, it wasn’t a meniscus. But even if the Heat were to advance (beyond) this first round, somehow, his postseason availability is still very much up in the air.”

Here’s more on the Heat:

  • Although Miami suffered a resounding loss in Game 1 on Sunday, there were at least a couple silver linings, as Anthony Chiang writes in a pair of stories for The Miami Herald. The team’s last two first-round picks – Nikola Jovic and Jaime Jaquez – made the first playoff starts of their respective careers and ultimately held their own despite some shaky moments in the first quarter. Additionally, buyout market addition Delon Wright came up big off the bench, scoring 17 points and making all five of his three-point attempts. Wright figures to play a regular role in the series with Terry Rozier (neck) sidelined.
  • The odds are against the Heat repeating last spring’s success and making another deep playoff run, but even in the event of a first-round exit, the team should be well positioned for the offseason, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Appearing on NBA Countdown (YouTube link), Wojnarowski said he expects a lot of action on the trade market this summer and pointed out that Miami is almost among the preferred destinations for disgruntled stars. That didn’t do the Heat much good in the Damian Lillard talks last summer, but the team should have more leverage with trade targets who have fewer years left on their contracts, Woj adds.
  • William Guillory of The Athletic takes a look at how Bam Adebayo became Udonis Haslem‘s successor as a pillar of “Heat Culture” and how the big man plans to uphold that ethos for years to come.