ONE MORE THING: Was Bam Adebayo's 83-Point Game Unethical?

One more thing here on Lockdown Heat, reacting to BAM at a BIOS historic 83-point game, but some people are questioning whether or not he did it unethically.

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I'm Wes Goldberg, host of Lockdown NBA Daily, and real jam radio.

I'm here with David Romila, both of us are credentialed heat media members who cover this team every day.

And of all those days, David, we've never seen a day quite like we did on Tuesday night, BAM at a BIOS, scoring 83 points.

The second most points scored in a game in NBA history will Chamberlain's 100.

Obviously, number one, BAM with last night's game against the Wizards surpasses Kobe Bryant's 81 points.

We covered it in depth, how it happened, why it happened, what it all means, the historic context of it all and why it's the most improbable game.

Any of us have ever seen in NBA history in the full length episode that posted late Tuesday night after the game.

You could check that out in your podcast feed and it's up on YouTube.

But we're starting to see in the aftermath of the BAM at a BIOS 83 point game, a little bit of controversy, David.

Some people questioning BAM's approach to it, the heat leaving BAM in as long as they did with basically a minute left in the game to go ahead and chase that record against the Wizards.

The fact that he got to the free throw line as much, people are saying, you know, and I don't know if it's a vocal minority or whatever it is, but it is a talking point that's out there and it's worth addressing here on the show.

People are saying that maybe it was unethical the way that BAM went about scoring his 83 points.

We covered this a little bit in the post game show, but we thought we could dive into it a little bit more here, David.

Yeah, it's just kind of unfortunate kind of a casting unnecessary shadow on something that should have been a glorious moment, not just for BAM as an individual, but the heat in general and the NBA.

This is a great historic moment.

That's one thing that I kind of take away from the whole experience is that we've all witnessed history and there's no wrong way of achieving it.

I mean, it's not nobody got hurt in the process.

Let's all kind of relax and touch grass, as they say, and just kind of just enjoy the moment because this was not.

There was nothing wrong in what he was doing or how he was able to accomplish it.

And this is happens all the time.

Don't players kind of create opportunities for somebody to get a triple double or to pad their stats a little bit.

I mean, how many times in Russell Westbrook get some help along the way to averaging a triple double over the course of the season?

These things happen. And you know what, that's historic and it's great and that's totally fine.

I don't mind the fact that the heat work creating opportunities for BAM by fouling the Wizards players.

I don't mind that he got to the line because guess what?

He got sent to the line and he still had to make him and that's not a guarantee just getting sent to the line.

Just ask Shaquille and Neil, you can get sent to the line a whole bunch of times and you're not going to make them all.

And so for BAM to be able to do that in this situation, like he had to calmly knock down those free throws after having played 35 plus minutes in a game, almost 40 minutes a game.

We had to knock down those free throws to get to where he did.

And there were other opportunities there too.

Like the reality is also he got fouled a lot because the Wizards were not able to stop him.

It's all in the context of the game.

It's not like they did anything different than playing the game of basketball to create an advantage to help a certain player.

Put up some greater stats than what he was incapable of doing or what he might have done normally under other circumstances.

Yeah, they were up 20 something points.

So should they have taken them out? Why?

Like to what end?

They helped him achieve history.

Like that's what this says all about. Like you put up these numbers to pad your career to pad your legacy to build it to put your name in the record books.

That's what everybody who does an NBA jersey is trying to do.

They just don't get that opportunity. Well, guess what bam did tonight.

So any way of him being able to do that is not unethical at all.

I don't care. Like I'm seeing the responses.

Maybe a lot of Wizards fans are the ones that have the strongest feelings about it.

But I think there are other media members who just kind of think it's unethical or maybe he didn't go about it the right way.

As if it didn't happen all the time.

As if this is every player that has ever put up a historic performance.

Didn't get some help, including Kobe Bryant.

Like I don't know why we're looking at Kobe all of a sudden as a shiny example of ethics of all things.

But in that game where he went, he scored 81 points.

He was a ball hog.

Like he was taking.

I think the number I saw was 14 of the 17 field of goal attempts in the fourth quarter.

That's that's not really ethical either.

That's Kobe to a tee.

Like, you know what?

I don't think you're good enough to be on the floor with me.

So who's going to take the shots?

Me the best player out here.

And so, you know, if you're looking at an ethical example of how to get to 80 points, it doesn't exist.

And so for bam, at least I know he didn't get huge assist numbers.

But they won the game.

They spank the hell out of the Wizards.

At some point all context goes out the window because you're not really playing for anything.

There's no stakes involved here.

The Wizards weren't trying particularly hard.

They're not a very good team to begin with.

Why the hell not chase history?

It never happens.

That's what makes it such a special occasion.

So, to me, the whole question about the ethics of it.

Really ridiculous.

And takes away from enjoying his work and fun moment in NBA history.

Yeah, the Pearl clutching on this is ridiculous.

And I do think that you're hitting on something really important

and you're bringing up Kobe Bryant.

And by the way, the stat, I just looked it up while you were talking.

He took 13 of the 17 field wall attempts

by the Lakers in the fourth quarter and that game against the Toronto Raptors

on his way to 28 points in the fourth quarter.

Bam, eight of Miami's 19 attempts in the fourth quarter on his way to 21 points in that fourth quarter.

But I mentioned this on the show and the post game show.

The Wizards kind of opened the door to leave Bam in the game and have to go score.

He was their best offense, believe it or not, with 83 points.

That'll do it for you.

And the Wizards cut what was a 20 plus point lead

for most of the second half to a 13 point lead at the beginning of the fourth.

They needed Bam to stay in and take shots in the fourth and at the start of the fourth quarter.

Now the fouling at the end, leaving them in until a minute left, whatever.

But he turned a March game between the heat and the Wizards

into one of the most important games in NBA history.

Well, it could have been a more forgotten game.

I'm sorry that you hate fun.

That he turned an otherwise pointless game into something that really matters

and overshadowing the prime time Celtics Spurs game tonight

and becoming the story of the league.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry that he did that to you.

But the Kobe thing, I think you're hitting on a really important part of this

and a sensitive part of this too.

I don't really want to besmirch Kobe or will to raise Bam's game.

I said this on the illustration.

Find me the ethical way to score 80 points.

You know, you're going to be chasing it.

You don't just, you don't score 83 points in the flow of the game, right?

You don't ask, how do you score 83 points?

I was just taking what the defense has given me.

No, that doesn't, that game doesn't exist.

Yeah.

Well, it was being fed the ball.

Kobe was being fed the ball.

That's what it was.

You were hot and then you started gunning for it and then we were all,

and it becomes something more than a basketball game at that point.

And that's really cool.

And if you're such a purist that every basketball game has to just be about the basketball

and I really hope you're, you should probably run the Princeton offense or whatever it is.

Like it's, we have 82 games per team and a lot of them suck.

This game was very memorable and we all had fun here.

But the Kobe point, I want to get back to that because I do think that might be

the most important point here.

We're going to talk about that after this.

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Back here with one more thing.

We're talking about whether or not Bam out of Bios 83 point game

was ethical or unethical.

And you brought up the name that I want to talk about more here,

which is Kobe Bryant.

And this is such a sensitive topic for NBA fans and really Kobe fans.

Who since his death, Kobe Bryant has achieved this superhuman type of quality

and aura and legacy.

And you're seeing this even in sort of the all-time rankings about,

is Kobe actually the second greatest player of all time behind Michael Jordan?

And he's not.

And look, and this is not an anti-Coby thing.

I loved Kobe Bryant growing up too.

He's the mamba, right?

This is not an anti-Coby thing.

But I do think it's worth pointing out that because of the unfortunate way that Kobe passed.

And the heartbreak that it caused.

And I can tell you, I know the heartbreak because I was at Lower Marion High School

where they put out the cemetery air thing.

I'm missing the word here, but the tribute to him.

The memorial.

The memorial, thank you.

I forget the word late night here on a Tuesday.

And I'm watching people who grew up literally with Kobe in outside of Philadelphia,

crying, bent over over the memorial.

I understand the heartbreak that it was.

And because of that heartbreak, sort of the hard conversation that we have about Kobe

and his legacy as a basketball player since then.

This is all about the basketball player, Kobe Bryant, not the person Kobe Bryant

and the inspiration that he was to a lot of people, right?

But because people have such a hard time separating those two things,

it almost, you become a villain.

And I do think that this is happening here.

Bam is almost villainized from moving Kobe Bryant away from the record books.

And I think there's some of that happening here in some of the fallout from Bam's 83 point game.

100%.

Yeah, I think in his death, you know, preserving his legacy has become such a vital part of Kobe fans

and people who want to view him as this greater than life figure when the context of the NBA.

And look, I think that's kind of, you don't have to be smirch them.

Like, that's not what I'm even going to do here, even though I've been on record

and saying I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of who he was as a person or who he was as a player.

Like, we're ignoring a lot of the context here.

And I think a lot of younger fans kind of forgotten.

Like, there were a lot.

I mean, read any of the books about his tenure with the Lakers.

There was a lot there that Kobe did that shouldn't be acceptable as a teammate.

That goes against all the tropes that fans love to think of as far as being a team player

and a guy that kind of picks up your teammates and stuff like that.

Did he outwork everybody to become one of the greatest players in NBA history?

Absolutely.

But that doesn't mean he necessarily was a nice guy on his way to doing so.

But now that in his death, there's this idea of having to preserve where he ranks among the all-time grades

and Bams accomplishment chips away at that a little bit.

So I think he's going to catch a lot of flack for this.

Like, we're, you know, less than an hour away from having achieved history.

And we're talking about this.

So the context hasn't even really set in yet.

And just because of the nature of online media, like people are already responding about Kobe's 81 points

and what it means and that Bams accomplished it in such a way that takes away from the greatness of the game.

Like, there are people that are using Bams accomplishment as an indictment of basketball in general.

That this is a stat-padding era that none of this means that media members are saying this.

And that's just ludicrous to me.

Like, I don't know when that stat-padding to a certain extent hasn't been a part of any sport at any point in time.

Like, what do you think you think it's ideal for somebody to leave a picture in there and throw a no-hitter?

No, at some point your arm is spaghetti out there. It's like a wet noodle.

But you leave them out there so they can chase history.

And part of that is the impressive part of it, right?

Bams plays the entire second half, plays 40 plus minutes in this game.

There's an endurance quality to this.

It's hard to take that many shots.

Like, there is sort of this Iron Man impressiveness about it that doesn't happen every night.

And we can argue whether or not it's ethical or not.

Is it ethical in the context of a basketball game? No.

But again, show me the 80 point game that's ethical.

They're all not ethical.

If we're going to have this basketball-type conversation, this is not a basketball conversation.

This is a legacy and a history conversation.

This is a different, this transcends a normal basketball game into something that is rare-air.

To accuse it of stat-padding is so wild to me because it presumes that anybody could do this

if they just are unethical enough to try to pad their stats enough.

You can't just do this.

You can't just score 83 points.

And if the stat-padding, I mean, bam took 43 shots in this game.

Kobe took 46.

Well, it took 63.

What are we doing?

It's such a great point that you make.

Stat-padding has been around forever.

And that's okay because we tend to remember a lot of those games.

Like, stop miss me with the pearl clutching on this.

This was a lot of fun and it was memorable.

And it turned to an otherwise forgettable night into one of the most memorable nights we've ever seen.

Yeah, absolutely.

Nobody should take anything away from bam's accomplishment.

Regardless of who gets to plan it.

Honestly, I think, and I can't speak for certain.

But given the fact that most NBA players are like this,

I think even Kobe would be appreciative of seeing a guy like bam do that.

A guy who would say, in my opinion, that records are meant to be broken.

And would honor and respect the fact that bam was able to accomplish this.

And that bam has proven if nothing else to be a winner at a high level.

Like, yet an NBA championship still eludes him.

But he's won with the Olympic team.

He's done his role.

He's been a great player and a contributor to success at a team level.

And he does all the right things.

Like, if you're going to accuse any one player of being an ethical or unethical player,

it's not bam out of bio.

Like, his whole career has been built on doing all the little things that make team winning.

Such a good happen.

And so now we're going to look at him for taking too many free throws.

It's not his fault that the Wizards couldn't stop him and kept fouling him.

Like, he wasn't foul-baiting.

Like, we've seen Kobe Bryant foul-bait.

We've seen James Harder.

He wasn't out there.

Yeah, he wasn't doing the imbeater, the hardened impression.

He was getting fouled on the catch because the Wizards didn't know what else to do with him.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Well said.

I think you made the absolute best point here is all of a sudden, bam is not ethical.

Like, this is the guy that everybody has been demanding.

Be more aggressive.

And then he's as aggressive as a human could possibly be in a basketball game.

Like, well, not that aggressive, bam.

Two months.

That's too much, man.

You read the room.

Anyway, a great night for hoops, I think.

I'm curious, like, if people will remember this as fondly five, ten years from now.

That's interesting.

Right?

Because the Kobe 81 kind of goes down as part of the Black Mamba thing, right?

Yeah, I'm curious.

Yeah, I'm curious.

So we will be discussing this 83 point game forever.

I mean, like, it's the second highest scoring game in NBA history.

Highlight of the season for the heat, for sure.

No doubt.

I mean, for the NBA, right?

Like, this doesn't happen every season.

So what this means for bam as a player, I said this on the post game show yesterday.

And I think it's, it's really important.

The conversation about Bam and a bio and who he is as a basketball player on March 9th

is just going to be different after March 10th.

It's just, it's a different kind of conversation.

And I'm just, I am so interested to see how, because we don't know what that conversation is.

Everything that happens from now until the end of Bam's basketball career

will determine what that conversation is.

But this is a huge kind of turning point in his career.

And we'll see what it means for him.

And the Miami Heat going forward.

Thanks for tuning in today to Lockdown Heat.

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