As the 2024-25 NBA regular season draws closer, it’s time for predictions to begin circulating. The NBA MVP award is the most coveted individual award in the game of basketball and recently it’s been claimed by Nikola Jokic, and rightfully so.
However this year will be different and he will NOT be taking home his fourth MVP. Here is why Bam Adebayo of the Miami Heat will take home the 2024-25 NBA MVP award.
Bam’s Defensive Prowess
Bam Adebayo has long been regarded as one of the NBA’s best defenders. Since his NBA debut he has only continued to improve on both ends of the floor, with last season being his best season in a Heat uniform, especially on the defensive side as he finished third in Defensive Player of the Year Voting and had a strong case to win the award.
From 2022-23 to 2023-24 (his two best seasons statistically speaking), Bam saw a decrease in minutes per game from 34.6 to 34.0. Bam also played in four fewer games during the 23-24 season. Despite this, Bam had an increase in rebounds, defensive rebounds, assists, and blocks per game. In 2023-24 he anchored the Heat defense as their most consistent defender and player. The Heat only had a 112 defensive rating as a whole for the season, placing them at 16th in the NBA. They were still middle of the pack due to Bam Adebayo having the best defensive year of his life, but the injuries to key players weakened their defense as a whole.
Jimmy Butler’s Health Issues Will Allow Bam to Flourish as the Heat’s Number One Option
The Miami Heat are still considered Jimmy Butler’s team for many you may ask. But there are some Heat fans who will tell you they would rather move off of Jimmy Butler and give Bam Adebayo the keys. This is largely due to Jimmy being unavailable so much recently. Butler has failed to play more than 64 games in a regular season for the Miami Heat. Sure Playoff Jimmy is nice and has made up for it by taking the Heat to the NBA Finals twice this decade, but the Heat always get shot in the foot because of Jimmy Butler sitting out so many regular season games. Last season Butler missed 22 games as opposed to Adebayo only missing 11. Butler then missed the playoffs with an MCL sprain while Bam played all five and led the team in points, rebounds and minutes per game. We should expect Butler to miss plenty of games in 2024-25 once more which will lead to Bam Adebayo playing a bigger role for the Heat that we know he is capable of taking on.
Bam’s Growth and Role with Team USA This Summer Will Lead to a Breakout Season
For a while now Bam has been one of the most reliable stars in the game without really taking the next step and having his breakout season. There is reason to believe that this season is the breakout we have been waiting for, and part of that is because of the role he played in Team USA’s fantastic Summer of play which saw them go 11-0 and win the 2024 Summer Olympics Gold Medal.
It’s not unusual for a player from team USA to have a great Summer Olympics and turn it into an MVP worthy regular season directly after.
Charles Barkley played in the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics with the Dream Team and won a gold medal with them, then instantly followed it up by having his best NBA season to date, winning the 1992-93 NBA MVP award.
Dwyane Wade won a gold medal in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics with the Redeem Team, and followed it up with the best season of his NBA career in 2008-09. Many felt Wade was the rightful MVP of that season despite losing it but there’s no doubting that he took another big leap after his experience playing on a stacked team USA Olympics roster.
Bam has now won two gold medals but this time around he was earning a valuable spot in the rotation on a much more stacked team, dubbed The Avengers. Bam showed us the best of his game on both ends of the floor this Summer and it leads me to believe he is in for the season of his life during 2024-25.
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