It Takes a Real Loser To Hate What Bam Adebayo Just Did

Don't let the chatter online fool you. What Bam Adebayo just did in the Miami Heat's 150-129 victory over the Washington Wizards was incredible.

Eighty-three points (yes, 83), no matter how you get there, is a mind-blowing achievement. And Bam just did it. Eighty-three on 20-of-43 shooting from the field, 7-of-22 from three and 36-of-43 from the line.

The NBA has been around since 1946. It's seen 4,995 different players score at least one point in a game. It's seen 2,816 get to 20 points, 555 get to 40 and just 39 have scored 60.

Now, Bam is the third player in nearly a century of league history to eclipse 80.

Wilt Chamberlain, of course, had his legendary 100-point outing in 1962, almost 64 years ago, to the day. Over four decades later, in 2006, Kobe Bryant had 81 against the Toronto Raptors.

For basketball fans of a certain age, that night from Kobe will be etched in our memories for as long as we can still access them. Those were the days of SportsCenter and ESPNEWS. That event was more than consequential enough to tie up those airwaves for hours. And back then, it wasn't for hot-take dispensing or #EmbraceDebate shows. We could just watch what Kobe did to Toronto, on a loop, for hours.

That world doesn't really exist anymore. And Bam making literally twice as many free throws in his 83-point night than Kobe did when he dropped 81 doesn't help the highlight reel.

But this is something to celebrate. Basketball history is fun, especially when it's generated by an unexpected source, and regardless of what the NBA intelligentsia tells you to feel about it.

Multiple commentators and analysts referred to the performance as a "farce." The Volume's Carson Breber said it was "grossest historic game ever." In the immediate aftermath, searching "shameless" on X yielded nothing but posts about Bam. In his presser, Washington Wizards head coach Brian Keefe said the fourth quarter wasn't "real basketball." Jason Maples, a longtime staple of NBA Twitter turned the night into a comment on the entire era:

To be fair to all of the above, they're not alone. Theirs seemed to be the prevailing sentiment of the evening. Maples wasn't the only one to indict the entire era over this. Breber wasn't the only one who lamented Miami intentionally fouling toward the end of a blowout to give its guy a few extra possessions.

But the masses aren't always right. They aren't on this one. We hear and read a ton of takes about "ethical hoops," and on Tuesday, the Heat and Bam did the ethical thing.

It's cool to chase an achievement. It's commendable to want to make history. When an opportunity like this presents itself, teams and players shouldn't shy away.

When Bam had 31 in the first quarter, it was easy to wonder how high he could climb. He finished the first half with 43. And at that point, the team owed it to him to do whatever it could to keep piling up the points. If you watched his teammates' reactions throughout the second half, it was clear they were happy to do it.

What this performance showed, as much as Adebayo's scoring ability (which hasn't gotten much press at any point in his career) was his drive and his teammates' feelings about him.

They and their coach (Erik Spoelstra deserves a mountain of credit for this game) were not afraid to intentionally foul when the Wizards had the ball. They were eager to find Bam on as many of their own possessions as they could.

This was a vivid display of the camaraderie that can develop on a team. And this Miami group clearly has a level of it that's worth celebrating.

The Heat's own fans, unsurprisingly, did that on Tuesday. According to 5 Reasons Sports' Brady Hawk, some at the game were buying Adebayo jerseys and throwing them on in the bathroom at halftime. They wanted to be more a part of the history than simply being there. They wanted to wear their team's (and their star's) colors.

Those outside Miami certainly don't have to go that far, but it's fine to appreciate history when it happens. And at least in this case, regardless of how it happened.

This may come off a little hypocritical from someone who's spent his fair share of posts on X complaining on free throws and foul grifting, but Adebayo's 43 attempts from the line didn't feel as egregious as some of the other high-volume nights we've seen this season. When Kobe's 81 is legitimately in a player's sights, he and his team deserve a little leeway for doing what they can to get there.

And though Bryant's performance didn't break down to quite this degree, he was obviously hunting shots and a gaudy point total in that second half, too. Wilt's coach for his 100-point night, Frank McGuire, also had his players intentionally fouling for extra possessions down the stretch.

Instead of tearing Bam's night down, or using it as some kind symbol of the imminent collapse of the league, we really could just focus on how special it was.

A player with a career average of 16.0 points, and one who was at 18.9 for the season, just dropped 83. A player whose reputation has more to do with his defense than his scoring is now in a trio with Kobe and Wilt. A player whose previous career high for free-throw attempts in a game was 20 just took 43. And more impressive than that, he made 36 of them, including several with what had to be immense pressure as he approached 81.

Say what you want about the entertainment value (or lack thereof) of trips to the line, sinking his last 10 to get to 83 took nerves of steel, especially on the two separate trips that gave him points 80, 81, 82 and 83.

That's a total that just about every human being on the planet has never seen scored at any level. Bam's the winner who deserves respect for getting there. Those hating on his special night aren't.