Bam Adebayo Cursed At Pat Riley And Erik Spoelstra In Pre-Draft Workout

Per ESPN’s Zach Lowe:

“The Heat tested Adebayo when they hosted him for a pre-draft workout,” Lowe wrote. “They put him through a ‘hands’ drill in which a half-dozen staffers circled Adebayo, and chucked basketballs at him in random patterns. He caught every one.

“One Heat official asked Adebayo what percentage of corner 3s he could hit in practice. Adebayo answered with bravado: 60%. Prove it, they said. Adebayo hit 31-of-50 — 62%.

“They ran Adebayo ragged: block-to-block sprints culminating in an attempt to reject a shot at the rim; lane agility tests; footwork drills. After an hour, with exhaustion setting in, Heat officials began the drill they were really there to see. They asked Adebayo to switch onto perimeter players, including Justin Jackson, another prospect in attendance, and stay in front of them.

“Adebayo turned to Heat brass, including [Pat] Riley and [Erik] Spoelstra, and shouted: ‘Oh, you got me f—ing confused! You got me f—ed up!’ Translation: Don’t you know who I am? As the stops — ‘kills’ in Heat parlance — piled up, the trash talk flowed. ‘Oh, it was explicit,’ Adebayo says. It was not friendly taunting. Adebayo was not smiling.
“We were like, ‘Is this guy kinda crazy?’ Spoelstra says.

“Juwan Howard, then a Miami assistant, locked eyes with Dan Craig, the coach running the drill. ‘Our eyes got wide,’ Howard says. ‘We said, ‘This is a Heat guy.’ To have the balls to say that in front of Pat Riley — to say, ‘You’re not going to pick on me!’ — that’s a Heat guy.
“‘I’m lucky they like guys with edge,’ Adebayo says.

“Adebayo’s agents had cautioned him against overreacting to mistakes in pre-draft workouts. ‘If I miss two shots in a row, I might kick the ball across the floor,’ Adebayo says. ‘I was not gonna do that in front of Pat Riley, but behind closed doors, it’s ‘m—–f—– this and m—–f—– that.’”