Bam Adebayo on Olympic role: ‘I’ll figure it out’

Miami Heat fans got a sneak peek at how Bam Adebayo will play for Team USA during the Tokyo Olympics when the USA Basketball Twitter account released a short video a few days ago.

Adebayo will play tonight in an exhibition game against Nigeria — a team that features three Heat players, Precious Achiuwa, KZ Okpala and Gabe Vincent. It will be broadcast on NBC Sports. And we’ll get a sense of what Adebayo’s role will be.

Gregg Popovich called his role “a center” and that “he’s going to be very valuable to us.” The Heat center is one of the few bigs on this team — Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal and Damian Lillard could make up the top scorers. Aside from Adebayo, the only other bigs on the roster are Kevin Love, Draymond Green and Jerami Grant.

Adebayo said that he’ll figure out his role. The following is an excerpt from an article by Miami Herald reporter Anthony Chiang.

“We’ve got a lot of scorers and guys who want to pass the ball,” Adebayo said. “So I don’t know what type of role I’ll be in yet. I’ll figure it out and we’ll go from there.”

The international game has a more freewheeling style than the NBA level of play. Hopefully Adebayo will become more comfortable taking outside shots and exploding to the rim.