The Miami Heat’s offense is clogged. And the plunger needed to clear everything up may be … Bam Adebayo’s three-point shot?
If you’ve watched the Heat over the last couple of seasons, then you know their biggest issue is scoring. Miami finished 25th in offensive rating in 2023. The Heat are 24th this season, basically only ahead of teams that haven’t been taken seriously all season. In fact, since Jimmy Butler arrived in ’19, Miami has had only one season in the top 10 in offensive efficiency.
One of the biggest issues plaguing the Heat is their two best players—Butler and Adebayo—aren’t taken seriously as deep shooting threats, which is an anomaly among teams trying to compete at a serious level. Adebayo, however, is working on changing that.
Over his last four games (obviously a very modest sample size), Adebayo has drained all five of his three-point attempts. After hitting one three all season, he’s sunk five in four games, including a dramatic game-winner against the Detroit Pistons on Sunday.
Of the five makes, four have come from nearly the same spot: the top of the key. It’s a specific three the 26-year-old Adebayo has worked on often over the last few summers. And it’s a look he’s given quite often during the course of a game. As Adebayo facilitates the Heat offense from the top of the three-point line, it’s common for his defender to sag off into the paint, giving Adebayo plenty of room to shoot if he wants to. And he probably needs to start doing so much more often.
There’s a lot to unpack here, including why this even matters and how realistic it is for Adebayo to add this shot to his game. Let’s start with the why.
This isn’t like the mid-2010s fascination of turning every big man into a shooter. Teams have seemed to relearn the benefit of having talented bigs who can score inside the arc. Fellow tall men such as Anthony Davis, Giannis Antetokounmpo and even Joel Embiid—the best shooter of the three aforementioned—are, to an extent, bailing out the defense when they shoot from deep.
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Adebayo has worked diligently to improve his offense over the last few seasons. Last year, largely in response to how teams defended him in the playoffs, he unveiled a paint jumper that became an important release valve for the Heat offense, especially with all the attention paid to Butler.
But it hasn’t been enough to lift the Heat’s offense to even competent levels. And the team looks a lot better with a stretch option at the five.
Consider: With Butler and Kevin Love on the floor (and Adebayo off), Miami has a 121.7 offensive rating. With Butler and Adebayo on (and no Love), the Heat have a middling 115.1 offensive rating. Not only does Love give Miami another shooting threat, he opens up the paint for Butler, where he does his best work. The entire system seems to work better.
So can Adebayo turn into prime Kevin Love? Almost certainly not. But Adebayo definitely works on his outside shot. No one expected him to become a midrange shooter when he got into the league, and while it hasn’t always been pretty, Adebayo has already extended his range a respectable amount in his career. Last season, he told Sports Illustrated one of his goals was to shoot over 30% from three, and it’s been an area of focus with his trainer, Ronnie Taylor.
What Adebayo has shown is an ability to master one new shot. If he can turn that paint jumper into a top-of-the-key three, that could pay huge dividends for the Heat. Even with high-volume snipers such as Duncan Robinson and Tyler Herro, Miami lacks scoring and doesn’t shoot enough threes.
Adebayo extending his range not only would allow the team to get up more threes, it would almost certainly help Butler’s efficiency as well. If instead of rolling to the mid-paint, Adebayo can pop out to the top of the key, the Heat would become much more difficult to defend. (Remember, Chris Bosh did something very similar for this team during the Big Three era, though Bosh was a much more natural shooter to begin with.)
Now, it’s definitely not fair to expect this to happen overnight. There is no silver bullet for the Heat offense this season. Miami is almost certainly play-in bound once again, and good luck to the Heat if they are trying to repeat last season’s formula for an NBA Finals run.
But over the next couple of years with Adebayo entering his prime? And Butler getting older? Adebayo’s shooting is a worthwhile strategy for him and the team to explore, even if Erik Spoelstra already puts so much on Adebayo’s plate—and loathes overfocusing on his scoring.
For now, the Heat are more or less stuck with their backed-up offense. If Adebayo keeps honing his outside shot, though, relief could finally be on the way.
