Bam: a nickname inspired by The Flintstones and the dream of playing for the Hornets

Edrice Femi Adebayo – Bam – slipped to No. 14 in the 2017 NBA Draft largely because of a paradox. He chose Kentucky for his lone college season (2016–17) because coach John Calipari had a proven record of turning top prospects into quick NBA draft picks. Yet Calipari also limited Adebayo’s role to setting screens, finishing pick-and-rolls and defending relentlessly on a team led by two lightning-fast guards, De’Aaron Fox and Malik Monk.

That Kentucky team fell in the Elite Eight – just one game short of the Final Four – against North Carolina. Still, it produced three lottery picks: Fox (No. 5), Monk (No. 11) and the rugged Adebayo (No. 14).

Because of that limited role with the Wildcats, some wondered whether the center – now 28 – could ever become a top-tier player, or even a viable offensive option, in the NBA. That uncertainty led the New York Knicks to pass on him with the eighth pick – selecting Frank Ntilikina, who is already out of the league largely because he never developed as an offensive threat. The Charlotte Hornets also looked elsewhere, despite being the team Adebayo dreamed of joining. Instead they chose his Kentucky teammate Monk, whose NBA career began unevenly before stabilizing later in the Western Conference with the Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings.

Adebayo’s journey to NBA history

The Miami Heat had Adebayo ranked No. 10 on their board, and the front office sensed an opportunity. Detroit, picking No. 12, already had Andre Drummond and took shooter Luke Kennard instead. That left the 13th pick, originally held by the Denver Nuggets. When Denver traded it to the Utah Jazz – who selected Donovan Mitchell – Miami smiled. The player who had impressed them during pre-draft workouts was still available.

During one of those workouts, Adebayo even went nose-to-nose with franchise president Pat Riley. Some might have taken it as a warning sign, but then-assistant coach Juwan Howard immediately saw something different: “He’s got Heat culture in him.”

Erik Spoelstra later helped rediscover the version of Adebayo that once dominated high school basketball. Back then he handled the ball, absorbed triple-teams and averaged 32 points and 21 rebounds during his junior year. That production made him a five-star recruit – the fifth-best prospect in the nation entering the 2016 college season and the second-ranked power forward.

In South Florida, the Heat valued more than just the player. They also saw the person: disciplined in school, universally praised by those who knew him, intense but able to channel that intensity into commitment and team loyalty. Spoelstra even said the organization wanted to help Adebayo achieve the story he had been fighting for – lifting his mother, Marilyn Blount, out of poverty.

Adebayo’s father, who is Nigerian, left when he was still a child. His mother nicknamed him “Bam” after the Flintstones character Bam-Bam, the baby adopted by Barney and Betty Rubble. She raised him in a trailer park in North Carolina, working as a cashier. As a boy, Adebayo saw the exhaustion and anxiety in her life and promised he would one day change it.

With his first NBA paycheck, he took her to dinner at a Cheesecake Factory. Later he bought her an apartment in the same downtown Miami building where he lived – just 41 floors lower. He stayed on the 46th floor; she preferred the fifth. She never liked heights.

For years, the photo of the trailer where they lived remained the wallpaper on his phone. When he arrived in Miami, he taped the same image inside his locker and sometimes wrote the address on his sneakers.

“I didn’t want to be seen as just another poor kid,” he once said. “My ambition was forged in that trailer. If my life had been easier, maybe I wouldn’t be here. That trailer made me who I am.”

Since then, Adebayo has become one of the NBA’s premier centers. At times he has looked like a superstar, at other moments simply an elite all-around player – but always impactful. He has been a three-time All-Star (2020, 2023, 2024) and won two Olympic gold medals. One came in 2020; the other in 2024 as part of the legendary U.S. team led by LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry.

His current contract extension is worth more than $161 million over three years. He earns over $37 million this season and will approach $50 million in the next. By the time the deal expires in 2029, he will have earned close to $300 million in salary from the Heat alone.

Across his career he averages 16 points, nearly nine rebounds and 3.5 assists per game – with this season at 19 points, 9.8 rebounds and 2.9 assists. He has yet to win a championship but has reached the NBA Finals twice with improbable Miami teams: the surprise 2020 run that ended against the Los Angeles Lakers and the 2023 Finals loss to the Denver Nuggets.

Back then, Jimmy Butler – the team’s alpha – said that if Miami won the title, “it would be because of Bam Adebayo.” Spoelstra echoed the sentiment, praising his relentless work ethic: “Anything we say about the responsibility he takes on would still fall short.”

Adebayo has evolved into the ideal center for modern basketball. Not the tallest, but powerful, quick and highly mobile – perfect for the aggressive switching defenses that dominate today’s NBA. In 2023 teammate Duncan Robinson called him simply “a beast,” noting how his screens and passing created scoring opportunities for shooters.

Adebayo thrives on doubt. “I love proving people wrong,” he said once, brushing aside the challenge of battling Nikola Jokić in the Finals. “This is fun. My mom and I lived on $12,000 a year – that’s real pressure.”

Even after her son became a millionaire star, Marilyn Blount sometimes broke down in tears in her new apartment, still struggling to process that everything around her was truly hers.

“I still worry about whether my son has what he needs,” she said. “If he’s traveling with the team, I wonder whether he’s carrying enough money. When you’ve lived like that, you never stop thinking about it.”

Miami noticed that bond long before draft night. They saw extraordinary maturity in a teenager with a rare physical profile and relentless work ethic.

Inside the Heat’s training facility, the weight room is called “Zo’s Zone,” honoring franchise legend Alonzo Mourning, who set legendary strength records there. Adebayo has already surpassed several of them, though trainers once told him he would need years to approach Mourning’s most extreme numbers.

His rookie season required patience. Spoelstra barely used him at first, but Adebayo kept working. He hired a personal chef earlier than planned, transforming his diet with quinoa, vegetables and constant advice – even while traveling, sending photos of restaurant menus for approval. The result: his body-fat percentage dropped below 7%.

All of it was part of the story he had envisioned for years.

Now Adebayo has celebrated an 83-point performance – one of the greatest scoring nights in NBA history – during a moment when the Heat themselves are navigating a quiet stretch, searching for a new franchise star and perhaps the next chapter of their identity.

Through it all, he remains the constant: a rock who always does his job.

And yet he might not even be the best basketball player in his own household.

A’ja Wilson: the other star

His partner, center A’ja Wilson, is on a path toward becoming the greatest player in women’s basketball history. While Adebayo now holds the second-highest single-game scoring mark in NBA history, Wilson shares the WNBA record of 53 points with Liz Cambage.

At 29, she recently became the first player in U.S. professional basketball history – NBA or WNBA – to win a championship, MVP, Finals MVP, scoring title and Defensive Player of the Year in the same season.

A three-time WNBA champion with the Las Vegas Aces and Olympic gold medalist in 2020 and 2024, Wilson’s résumé is staggering: four MVP awards, two Finals MVPs, seven All-Star selections, three Defensive Player of the Year honors and two scoring titles.

She was sitting courtside when Adebayo scored those 83 points against the Washington Wizards.

And in the final quarter, she barely sat down.

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