The painful truth behind Bam Adebayo’s 83 points
To understand the truth behind Adebayo’s 83 points you have to have seen many games. It was the triumph of the artificial over the natural.
The 83 points of Bam Adebayo they caused an impact. For being the second historical mark behind the 100 converted per Wilt Chamberlain in 1962 and above all for dethroning the brand of 81 that Kobe Bryant had reached on January 22, 2006 before Toronto Raptors.
Adebayo received everyone’s greetings. The photograph was taken with the number 83, emulating the one produced by Harvey Pollack with the record-breaking man on the legendary afternoon at Hershey’s. Until then, everything is fantastic, but of course: we live in the era of highlights and one is forced to ask the inevitable: Did they even see the game? Beyond the photo… Did anyone stop to analyze the film?
The last quarter of Bam Bam’s feat was an embarrassment. The Heat players fouled their Wizards colleagues (a bad team, but with several casualties on their backs it evolved into an incredible one) to speed up the possessions. Adebayo receiving in any position, throwing absolutely everything, spread out, with a mark on him, going with the complicity of those around him for a number for the newspapers. Machiavelli once said that the end justifies the means.
The reality is that not everything that glitters is gold.
Adebayo’s start is the memorable one. His 31 units in the initial quarter. He was, throughout the first half, 13-24 in field goals, 12-14 in free throws and 5-11 in triples. Fantastic. But the second half was something like using a cheat code in a video game (7-19 in TC, 24-29 in free and 2-11 in triples). Find the basketball fissure and attack there. Force a record, not conquer it. Receive all the balls to shoot at any rate, from any position (literally) in a game that had been defined for a long time. Force the way to the personnel line. More than the NBA it seemed like a birthday, or a tribute in a maxi-basketball game. Because the Heat were always ahead on the scoreboard, because Bam played 42 minutes in a game they won by 21, because he shot 43 free throws, because he is the only player in history to shoot less than 50% from the field in a 70-point game.
It’s nothing like what Kobe conquered in 2006.
We know it, of course, those of us who already comb some gray hair.
Bryant’s game against the Raptors was totally different. They scored it between three players. At the end of the first half, the Lakers trailed 63-49. Toronto had 65% of the field. The Lakers bench had combined to go 2-11 in field goals. Lamar Odom was 1-7 and Kwame Brown 1-5. Bryant, who had scored 26 points in the first half, was a necessity. To understand the time you have to go back a month before. More precisely on December 20, 2005: the Lakers beat the Mavericks 112-90, but the main story was that Kobe, who had scored 62 points in three quarters (all of Dallas, in that period, had 61), did not step on the court in the decisive quarter.
A different approach from Phil Jackson, Los Angeles coach in those years, and Erik Spoelstra in the construction of the extraordinary.
We compare with Kobe, and not with Wilt, because there was not even a film record of the Philadelphia Warriors’ 100th game against New York Knicks. We live in the era of impact, of surface over depth. From the number of followers over the quality of the content. Let it be what it has to be, but let it be fast. Only the what matters, but the how stopped mattering.
To understand the truth behind Adebayo’s 83 points, you have to have watched a lot of basketball games. It was the triumph of the artificial over the natural.
We knew how to be different. Not all things, no matter how beautiful they seem, are worth or mean the same.
