NBA Draft 2017 Prospect Watch: Bam Adebayo
By Adam McGee
Strengths
Adebayo is an explosive athlete whose game has grown at a rapid rate from his AAU days right through to his freshman year under John Calipari at Kentucky.
Although in many ways Adebayo lacks the kind of polish that may ultimately be required for him to reach his full potential, the flashes of his core abilities are there.
The youngster, who spent most of his formative years in North Carolina, possesses great quickness for his size, something which he can be seen to put into action in straight lines as a rim-runner or laterally on the defensive end.
The combination of speed, ease of movement, explosiveness and a 7’2″ wingspan leaves Adebayo with immense defensive potential, even if consistency remains an issue. In 38 games as a Wildcat, Adebayo averaged 1.5 blocks and 0.7 steals in 30.1 minutes per game, and there’s no reason in looking at his physical traits to suggest that he couldn’t replicate or surpass that production at some point in the NBA.
Just as Adebayo’s explosiveness allows him to block more shots than someone of his height generally should, his ability to take off and leap with real power adds extra wrinkles to an offensive game that would otherwise only be described as a work in progress.
Adebayo scores the bulk of his points with dunks, having cut back on some of the more inefficient elements of his offensive repertoire in his time at Kentucky. These can come off lobs, as a trailer, when he gets out in front of the play in transition, and perhaps most importantly as offensive rebounds.
Adebayo had a reputation as being prolific on the offensive glass entering college, and with 3.1 offensive rebounds per game last season he managed to back that up, even when competing against bigger men.