Highlights

• Adebayo may have been overshadowed at the Olympics, but his impact on Team USA’s gold medal run was evident.
• With impressive stats and versatility, Adebayo is ready to lead the Miami Heat and take on a more prominent role.
• The Heat’s roster is built to fit around Adebayo, signaling a potential shift away from Jimmy Butler as the team’s centerpiece.

Bam Adebayo ‘s numbers at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris won’t stand out as he was relegated to being a bit player on a stacked Team USA.

He averaged 6.0 points, 3.7 rebounds and 1.3 assists in 16.1 minutes per game.

However, he was a plus-32 across the US’s six contests, more accurately showing his impact on the team’s run to a fifth-consecutive Gold Medal.

His best game came against South Sudan when he was the best player on the floor. He scored 18 points in 21 minutes on 8-of-10 shooting and 2-of-3 from three. He added seven rebounds, a steal and a pair of blocks.

He may have been overshadowed by Joel Embiid and Anthony Davis (along with LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry), but Adebayo showed how his versatile game can add value and slot into any group.

As he returns to the NBA to prepare for the 2024-25 season, it’s become clear that the Miami Heat need to take Jimmy Butler ‘s car keys and hand them to Adebayo.

Bam Adebayo Is No Longer the Future in Miami

The 27-year-old has earned his shot now

Adebayo showed in Paris that he’s capable of being a role player. The Heat need to let him cook like a superstar.

Bam is consistently one of the most overlooked stars in the league. He earned his first All-Star berth in the 2019-20 season, his first as a full-time starter, and finished that campaign with averages of 15.9 points, 10.2 rebounds, 5.1 assists, 1.1 steals and 1.3 blocks. He shot 55.7 percent from the field on 11.0 attempts per game.

Over the four ensuing seasons, he’s averaged 19.4 points, 9.6 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 2.1 stocks (steals plus blocks). He’s made two more All-Star teams, five All-Defensive teams and has finished in the top five of Defensive Player of the Year voting in five consecutive seasons.

Over that same time frame, Butler has averaged 21.3 points, 6.1 rebounds and 5.7 assists. He’s only played more than 60 games once during those five seasons, and as he turns 35 this year, is arguably coasting on the Playoff Jimmy label he admittedly earned during the 2022 and 2023 postseasons.

Last year, however, Butler missed Miami’s opening-round series loss to the Boston Celtics while Adebayo led the Heat in minutes, scoring and rebounding. He was second in assists and shot 49.5 percent from the field despite averaging 19.4 field goal attempts per game (nearly four more than any other Miami player).

Adebayo Is Ready to Lead This Heat Roster

Butler should be relegated to role-player status in Miami

It’s relatively plain to see that this Heat roster is built to fit around Adebayo, not Butler.

When Butler’s salary comes off the books (or when he’s traded), Tyler Herro’s four-year, $120 million deal, which would be the second-highest on the team, doesn’t look so daunting.

Instead, Herro looks like an attractive secondary piece as a shooter who can spot up, sprint around screens or come off pindowns and slide in neatly next to a playmaking center like Adebayo.

The versatility of a pick-and-roll between the two could give opposing defenses fits. Given Bam’s playmaking ability, inverting that pick-and-roll so that Herro is the screener for Adebayo, much like Team USA did with Curry and James, isn’t out of the question.

Jaime Jaquez Jr., who was in the running for both Rookie of the Year and Sixth Man of the Year last season, can take his do-it-all offensive game and put it to better use without Butler, who has many of the same skills offensively, in the way.

Terry Rozier can be a sparkplug on offense and a pest on defense, giving Miami a point-of-attack defender in front of one of the best and most flexible defenders in the league in Adebayo.

The former Kentucky standout’s ability to step out and shoot, which he showed during the Olympics, would only make this offense more dangerous.

Adebayo also showed that he could play with another center on the floor, which he often did with Davis in Paris. The Heat drafted Kel’el Ware, an athletic 7-footer loaded with upside, with the 15th pick in the 2024 NBA Draft.

Last season at Indiana, Ware averaged 15.9 points, 9.9 rebounds and 1.9 blocks. He shot 58.6 percent from the field and 42.5 percent from three.

He carried that into Summer League, where he averaged 18.0 points, 8.3 rebounds, 1.0 steals and 1.5 blocks on 61 percent shooting.

Ware’s size and skill set aren’t drastically different from Davis’s. Adebayo shouldn’t struggle to play in two-big lineups next to the 20-year-old.

Don’t forget that Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra was an assistant on Team USA and watched all these scenarios closely.

Adebayo is ready to become the face of the Heat franchise, and the roster is built to allow him to grab the mantle. Now, it’s just a matter of jettisoning Butler out the door.