Miami Heat: Bam Adebayo’s level of aggressiveness will decide their fate

Bam Adebayo has to be more aggressive for the Miami Heat this season. 

It’s not normal to hear that a player coming off a season in which they averaged 19 points, nine rebounds, and five assists per game on 57 percent shooting from the field on top of being one of the best – and most versatile – defenders in the league needs to be more aggressive this season. But that’s exactly what happens to be the case for Bam Adebayo and the Miami Heat this season.

Even though the pressure will be a bit lighter for Bam heading into this season, considering Miami hit big in free agency by acquiring Kyle Lowry, PJ Tucker, and Markieff Morris, if the Heat wants to be considered alongside the likes of the defending NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks and Brooklyn Nets, Bam is going to have to take a big leap in his game – specifically, his aggressiveness – this season.

But here’s the thing with aggressiveness, what exactly does that translate to? It’s a difficult intangible to measure in the NBA and the fellows of yesteryear would simply look at the box score to quantify if a player was aggressive on a certain night or not.

I don’t think it’s that simple, though.

Aggressiveness goes beyond shooting a certain number of times in a game. It goes beyond free-throw attempts, and beyond the stat sheet as a whole. But, at least for Bam, the disparity in shot attempts on a night-to-night basis was astounding.

For example, after taking a season-high 21 shot attempts during a game against the Indiana Pacers in March, Bam followed that up by taking just nine shots two nights later against the Phoenix Suns. Both were losses.

Does a more aggressive Bam equate to a better Miami Heat?

For a player that was considered a team’s second-best player, that doesn’t compute. At least for Bam, part of being more aggressive does entail being stingy – at times – when it comes to shooting the basketball.

Here’s the confusing part of all this – in those games in which Bam was “aggressive,” in which he shoots more than 15 shot attempts per game, the Heat was only 6-12. So that should tell us one of a few things.

Either, Bam was only “aggressive” in games that the Heat was shorthanded in, which more often than not resulted in losses, or that the Heat doesn’t get significantly better when he’s taking more shots.

To test out the first theory, we had to do a bit of research.

The Heat was only without Jimmy Butler in three of the 12 losses; that’s a bit concerning. That suggests more toward the theory that an aggressive Bam doesn’t exactly equate to a better Heat team.

On the other hand, it could mean that a more aggressive Bam means that Jimmy takes too much of a step back. Too many times over the past two seasons, we’ve seen Jimmy be perfectly fine with taking a back seat, especially in the regular season. I’d have to imagine that’s more what was at play for Miami in the 12 losses, but there really isn’t a measurable of that intangible.

One thing that I believe most can agree with is that the Heat will need a third star next to Kyle Lowry and Jimmy this season. The expectation is that it will be Bam. But if that’s going to be the case, he’s going to have to showcase a more aggressive offensive game this season.

On nights when Jimmy and Lowry don’t have it, Bam will have to lift the Heat. Too many times he failed to do so. And when he did, the team simply didn’t win many games. That will have to change this season if the Heat is going to be any kind of contender in the Eastern Conference.