Miami Heat: 5 goals for Bam Adebayo’s rookie season
By Frank Urbina
1. Make an All-NBA Rookie team
Considering just how ridiculous the 2017 NBA Draft class has looked during Summer League, this goal might be the most difficult for Adebayo to accomplish.
I mean, the 2016 batch of first-year players was absolutely dreadful, yet Rodney McGruder (a fellow first-year guy) failed to make that cut for an All-Rookie team, despite being an important contributor on a squad that won 30 of its final 41 games.
Name matters and Brandon Ingram has more upside without a doubt, but Rodney McGruder got robbed not making an All-Rookie team. pic.twitter.com/ZZAGSlYPAb
— Frank Urbina (@FrankUrbina_) June 26, 2017
(By the way, the guy who beat him out — Brandon Ingram — finished 2016-17 with the fifth worst Value Over Replacement Player, the eighth worst win shares and the worst total points added in the entire NBA. What a joke.)
So to expect Adebayo to make the cut when McGruder couldn’t against a much weaker field is probably unrealistic.
But hey, that’s why we set unlikely goals for our supersized rookie — even if he just misses them, he still had a great season either way.
In order for Adebayo to earn All-Rookie honors, the Heat will need to have an unexpectedly great season (we’re talking 50+ wins) — one that he plays a major part in. That’s not totally impossible, right?
Next: Miami Heat - 5 takeaways from the 2017 NBA Summer League
Regardless, the Heat’s first-year center is in store for a solid rookie campaign. He showed enough during the Summer League that I’m confident predicting that much, at least. And if he can culminate the opening campaign of his career fulfilling one or two of these goals, it’ll go a long way toward helping Miami’s chances of having a memorable 2017-18 season.