NBA Draft 2017 Prospect Watch: Bam Adebayo
By Adam McGee
Weaknesses
Listed at somewhere between 6’9″ and 6’10” depending on where you look, Adebayo possesses the range of abilities that are associated with the small number of traditional big men who have managed to maintain relevance in the changing NBA landscape. The difference is he lacks the height of a DeAndre Jordan or Rudy Gobert.
Adebayo’s size places him in tweener territory, but his skill-set undoubtedly makes him a center. He could act as an interesting counter to small ball, due to his combination of the traditional big man approach with added mobility, but wouldn’t seem likely to offer any of the floor spacing that has become a feature for modern bigs.
Having had a reputation for settling for midrange jumpers in his AAU days, Adebayo almost completely eradicated the jump shot from his game at Kentucky. The resulting 59.9 percent shooting season goes down as a positive, but NBA teams will hoping that he has learned a lesson in shot selection rather than completely abandoning some form of jump shot.
According to a Brian Hamilton piece for Sports Illustrated, Adebayo has reportedly improved his jump shot behind the scenes.
"“Coaches insist Adebayo’s under-deployed jumper has come along, behind closed doors. With school out for the Martin Luther King holiday, Adebayo and [Kentucky assistant, Kenny] Payne held a pre-practice workout. Payne had Adebayo take pick-and-pop midrange jumpers until he hit 20. Managers shouted out the big man’s make-to-miss ratio with each attempt. Ultimately, Adebayo required 30 shots to get 20 makes, indicative of a touch that Kentucky hasn’t so far needed (and that has been oddly lacking with Adebayo’s 61.8% free throw shooting). ‘I can see him learning to be able to be a three-point shooter one day,’ Payne says.”"
Until that shot has been put into practice and proven to hold up in a high level competitive setting, it’s still going to be hard to class it as anything other than a weakness.