Congratulations On 83 Points, Now Explain The 43 Free Throws

Bam Adebayo’s 83-point night sounds legendary, but we can’t ignore how strange it looked when you dig into the free throws and the late-game tactics. We give Bam his credit, then we compare his box score and game flow to the most famous 70-plus point games in NBA history and ask what “good basketball” is supposed to look like.
• Giving Bam kudos while still critiquing the path to 83 
• Why 43 free throw attempts changes the whole story 
• Game context matters: blowout versus close game scoring 
• Comparing Bam’s night to Booker, Embiid, Dame, Mitchell, Luka, Robinson, Baylor, Thompson, Kobe, and Wilt 
• Kobe’s 81 as the standard for shot-making and necessity 
• The ugly look of intentional fouling to chase a record 
• Questions about officiating, precedent, and game integrity 
• The silver lining: why Bam on the list still inspires people 
So please make sure to like, subscribe, comment, tell anyone who's anyone about the show.

Transcript

Opening And The 83 Bomb

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What's up, everybody? It's your favorite show's favorite show, get a bucket. I'm your host, Trey, as usual. Hope you're all having a wonderful, wonderful day. Today we're gonna get right on into it because this is a nice topic to talk about. Idris Femi Atabayo. Y'all might know him as Bam or Bam Bam. I was about to say Bam Bam for short, which is crazy. He just dropped 83 points in the game, ladies and gentlemen, against the Wizards. One kudos to Bam Adebayo, right, for scoring that much. Gotta tip your cap to him, right? 83 is still 83, end of the day. But then also, you gotta feel bad for the daggone Washington Wizards, man, because that I'm telling you right now, this is how villains are made, okay? Watch next season, they come in with a little chip on their shoulder. At least I hope so. Because you having someone drop 83 points on you, that's kind of disgusting. But what might be more disgusting is how it actually happened. Yes, this is a point in time now where we start critiquing the 83-point game. Again, I gave kudos to dropping 83 points. Like he still had to make his shots, he had to make his free throws. I hear that. But there were some things that I had to gripe with. Because again, every there are there were 11 people in the NBA's history that have scored 70 plus points. Okay. And I qu I can't say I've seen them get their buckets the way he did. Now, with Bam, his team was up 14 points at the half. Now, a delta, right, a point delta can always diminish pretty quickly. We've seen that in the league. Hell, we've seen a 20-point game diminish. We've seen that. But in a regular season game, I don't know if we need to see 43 free throw attempts and 43 field goal attempts from one person. Also, keep in mind, too, the rest actually missed about six or seven calls. They called them wrongly. I don't think they should have been shooting fouls, personally. That's just me. That's just my personal take. All right. Then when we also look at it, hell, everybody on this list that I'm about to name off did not get to the free throw line that much times. They didn't. And keep in mind, again, Bam's team was up a large part of the game, so he didn't have to play, but again, he was chasing Kobe's record. So I understand how we got here, but nobody played the way that they played for Bam. Because his team was actually fouling the Wizards just so that Bam can get a point. Like we were trying to do that multiple times just so that he can get to the 80 mark. That's kind of disgusting work. I'm not gonna lie to y'all. That didn't happen in D booked situation. His sons, he dropped 70 points. He went to the line 26 times. To be clear, ladies and gentlemen, outside of Wilt Chamberlain, who scored 100 points, this is the most free throw attempts that anybody on this list had. And by the way, his sons actually lost their game versus the Celtics. So his points were needed. Joel Embiid, they were close at the half against the Spurs. Ended up being a 10-point delta. Wemby scored 30 points, Joel Embiid scored 70. Which, if if, if y'all not paying attention to this, France is gonna be on our ass to come 2028. Because we just had two NBA players drop 70 and 80 points, 83, on French players. We got, again, Wemby had that 70 piece dropped on him. And then Alex Sarr and Bilal Kuabali had that 83 piece dropped on them. So, ladies and gentlemen, I'm worried about France. But let's can let's continue it, right? Elgin Baylor, his team was up five at halftime. He gives you 71. 19 free throw attempts. Damian Lillard, this was in 39 minutes of play. Joel and Bees was in 37 minutes of play, too. That's kind of crazy. But his team was up 15 at the half. So this is kind of synonymous to Bam's team, right? They were up 14 at the half. Dame's team was up 15 at the half. They ended up winning that game. Donovan Mitchell, 71 points, 25 free throw attempts, had to go into overtime. David Robinson, 71, 71 points, up to entering the fourth quarter. Luca Doncick, 73 points, 16 free throw attempts. David Robinson had 25, by the way, free throw attempts. But Luca had 73 points, 16 free throw attempts, and it was a close game the whole time. David Thompson, 73 points. He actually lost his game. Cole. We, and I say we, because I'm a Lakers fan. 81 points, 20 free throw attempts. Our team down 14 at the half. Wilt Chamberlain. This one was interesting. Because he got 100 points. 63 field goal attempts. Jeez, that is ridiculous. 32 free throw attempts. Again, we're talking about 100 points. His team was up 11 at the half. You gotta assume that Buddy was a little close to the Hundo mark and he felt like he could get it. I give a little grace for that, because again, if he got 100, all right, cool, I get it. But he also scored 36 free throw or field goals. That's not bad. And then made 28 out of 32 free throws. I hear it. Bam Atabayo had 83 points on 20 field goal makes out of 43 attempts and then 43 free throws taken. Let's go to the 81 marker that Kobe dropped. We did 28 and 46, meaning field goal makes, field goal attempts, and then 18 out of 20. That looks a little bit better than what Bam did, respectfully. Because Kobe takes three more field goal attempts, makes eight more buckets. Let me say that again. Takes three more field goal attempts, eight more buckets. That's ridiculous. Also, our team was down at the half. So we needed it. And before y'all sit up there and say, oh, well, if Kobe was in the same situation, he would have kept it going too. I'm glad you said that. Because Kobe's had moments where he's dropped 60 points in 33 minutes of play. And he chose to sit out the fourth quarter because he was not needed. His play was not needed. He outscored the Mavericks, the Dallas Mavericks, through three quarters, deciding not to play. James Harden had a 60-point game in 31 minutes. He chose to sit out the fourth himself. Klay Thompson, 61 points in 29 minutes. On 11 dribbles, decided to sit out himself. I'm not trying to slight bam saying he should have sat out. My gripe, ladies and gentlemen, is, or some of my gripes are the fact that the Heat were literally fouling the Wizards in order for this man to go down the court and just try to get fouled. It looked bad. It was not good basketball, to be clear. And if that's going to set the precedent for what we can do to beat Wilt Chamberlain's record, is not good basketball, ladies and gentlemen. It's not. It's really not. I had a I asked this one guy who's a Heat fan, where does he rank Bam's 83-point game? He said number one. Obviously, I think he's joking, but he's been going to bat for Bam today. And the and the real about it is the game was ugly. Even J.J. Reddick said, yeah, that was interesting basketball. Like if you've watched basketball, you automatically have to recognize, yeah, he had a hell of a first quarter. 31 points ain't bad. I think he had 43 or 45 by the half. All right, that makes you think this is obtainable. Let's try to keep it going. So I understand the logic. I just don't appreciate how the destination got us there. Like if you actually take the time to watch the game, ladies and gentlemen, I'm just talking about the end again. If you watch the fouls that were called for BAM, at least six or seven of them, I question it. Like the first one, I would have questioned. Personally, that's just me. If a ref calls it, cool, but I would have questioned it. But also, fouling a team while you're up 20-30 points in the fourth quarter is kind of egregious. That did not happen with anybody here on this list, not to my knowledge. If so, I missed that memo. So like looking at this, it makes me think like the delta between Kobe and Bam's free throw attempts is 23. And I gotta assume that if Kobe gets 23 more free throw attempts, he's going to make 19 to 20 of those. Which, if we're making 19, we tie Wilt at 100. If we make 20, we're at 101 and we got the lead. And even in that moment, I don't know if I want to respect that 100-point marker, that 101-point marker. If that's how we got it done, if we're fouling the opponents, like imagine if we're fouling the Raptors to get Kobe to get up to 100. That's that's kind of that that's kind of dirty. That's kind of dirty personally. But maybe y'all disagree. Now, again, ladies and gentlemen, I gave you 11 total players that have scored 70 plus points. I've given you three players who have scored 60 points or more through three quarters. And there seems to be some similarities between them. The only person that it differs for is Bam Adibayo. So I think this is going to be controversial. Now, to be nice, I did tell a friend of mine the moment it happened, I think seeing, like again, the order is Will Chamberlain, Bam Atabayo, Kobe Bryant, David Thompson, Luka Donchik, David Robinson, Donovan Mitchell, Damian Lillard, Elgin Baylor, Joel NB, Devin Booker. Respectfully, Bam Adabayo's name, it does not look like it belongs on this listing. Like, has Bam ever averaged like 30 points in a season? We're not used to seeing Bam as a scorer. Can he score? Yes. Yes. But a top-tier score, like, I don't think we were expecting Bam Adebayo to be the one that usurps Kobe Bryant. And because of that, I think you can kind of play on the idea that, hey, anything is possible. If you put in a lot of hard work, you can overshadow some of these great, some of these records that we deemed would be unbreakable. I think there is a case for that. So having Bam Ataba's name on this list, while I may have a gripe at how it happened, there is a silver lining in it happening. I gotta acknowledge that. But again, ladies and gentlemen, I still don't like how it happened. 43 free throw attempts. That is disgusting work. That is the most free throw. That is 11 more free throw attempts than what Wilt Chamberlain had. And Wilt has 100 points. So, like, were we supposed to send Bam Ada Bio to the free throw line 17 more times? That's kind of crazy. That's kind of crazy. Because now we're talking about what, 60 free throw attempts? Like, at some point in time, if he honestly, if he really got fouled that way, cool. I hear it. But we gotta be honest about the game because the integrity of the game has been in jeopardy. And this could be a case to explore whether or not the game is is rigged. I'm not trying to take away from BAM's game. It's a legendary game. Kudos to you again. You still gotta make the buckets. 43 free throw attempts. It just don't sound right. Fouling them, fouling a team while you while you up 20, 30 points. That's kind of trash. And matter of fact, one of my boys told me we gotta start bringing back allowing fighting to occur. I think this is a moment to allow fighting to occur. Because if you're fouling a, that's just that's that I'm sorry, that's just not good basketball. But ladies and gentlemen, here's my thing. I'm very curious if you all disagree or agree with me. Like how, what was your one immediate thought of Bam's 83-point game? And then two, what was your thought of it after you had time to sleep on it? Maybe you woke up and heard that Bam had 83 points. So I'm curious what your initial thoughts were. And then after you had time to sleep on it, think about it real quick, what you thinking now? Do y'all agree with me in saying that the 83-point game is a little weird? Like personally, again, no disrespect. I respect Kobe's 81 more than Bam's 83. I might even respect some of these 70s more than this 83 because of how the 83 was obtained. To be clear, hell, this ain't just BAM's 83-point game. This is the team's 83-point game. The Heat scored 83 points. Like, good job, Heat. Like, that's how it looks. That's how it feels. The refs got in a little bit of action too. Shout out Adam Silver as well. Like, we got someone got a vendetta against Kobe Bryant. That's how it sounds. That's how it feels, man. I don't know. But let me know y'all's thoughts, ladies and gentlemen. So please make sure to like, subscribe, comment, tell anyone who's anyone about the show. My name is Trey. I'm the host of get a bucket. I hope you are all having a good one. Take care.