Adebayo was a big reason why the Miami Heat made it to the NBA finals this season, even though most people thought they wouldn’t make it out of the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Bam and his team beating a Nuggets team led by Nikola Jokić would be one of the biggest surprises in NBA history. They still had 7 games to go in the series. Face2Face Africa tells you four things about the Miami Heat Center that you probably didn’t know while both teams are playing for the title.
Born in Nigeria, his dad is
His mother is African American and his father is from the Yoruba tribe in Nigeria. The 25-year-old was born in Newark, New Jersey, and he planned to go to the country where his late father was from for the first time in 2020 to take part in the Basketball Without Borders camp. That did not happen, though, because of CоVID-19.
“I want to visit Nigeria so badly,” he told The Undefeated. “That place has always interested me. Check it out. I could go over there and be a king I don’t know about. I don’t even know if that house over there is mine. That’s why I’m excited to go over there.
“Because I’m half-Nigerian at heart.” I don’t want to sаy that, though, because I don’t know where my group is or how my nаme came to be.
This is not his real nаme: “Bam”
People call the NBA All-Star player “Bam,” but his real nаme is Edrice Femi Adebayo. Before he turned one, his mother called him “Bam” while he watched The Flintstones. His nicknаme comes from a character in the cartoon show called Bamm-Bamm Rubble. One story goes that his mother called him that nаme after he threw a table like a cartoon character.
At first, he didn’t want to accept that he was Nigerian.
Bam said he didn’t have a lot of conversations with his dad, John Adebayo, while he was still living. He told The Undefeated that his father stopped talking to him after his mother moved to North Carolina. His half-brother told him that his father had died in Nigeria.
He also said that he didn’t want to accept his Nigerian roots at first because his father wasn’t a big part of his childhood. Adebayo said, “I feel like… my dad’s not in my life.”
“I don’t wish to find out about that part of my family.” I had to grow past that. And it was hard for me; I was growing up. Because everyone under 15 has a normal nаme, like Williams or Bennett, or any other nаme that sounds normal. Then there’s the kid who has Adebayo. ‘Oh, you’re African,’ and other things like that. And because you’re from a small place, everyone looks at you differently.
“I didn’t want it when I was younger because I thought, ‘Man, he wasn’t in my life.'” “What’s with the last nаme?”
He did sаy that changed as he grew up, though. “When I got older, I thought, ‘Man, I have a nice last nаme.'” It sounds good. “It works well with Bam,” he said. “Bam Adebayo clicks, it sounds good when you sаy it out loud….
“I know that my last nаme means ‘born in a happy time.'” It means something to me just to think about that. I feel like it fits with who I am and how I act.”
He thought about paying for the Nigerian me𝚗’s national basketball team at one point.
In 2020, Bam won a gold medal with the US me𝚗’s national basketball team, but after being cut from the USA basketball team the year before, he thought about playing for his father’s home country.
Back then, Bam told The Undefeated that he wasn’t sure if he would represent Nigeria at the Olympics. “I still think about it sometimes.” A lot of guys would give me a little elbow when we played in the regular season and sаy, “Man, the Nigerian team looks pretty good.”
The famous African meal “fufu” is his favorite thing to eat.
The star player for the Miami Heat loves the famous African meal Fufu. Fufu is a special food from West Africa that is made from a mix of different grains and tastes, such as cornmeal, green plantain, yam, and/or semolina.