As NBA analysts, commentators, and fans continue to bash Bam Adebayo for scoring 83 points, Max Kellerman believes their affinity for Kobe Bryant is blurring their judgment.
In one of the most surprising achievements in NBA history, Adebayo scored 83 points in 42 minutes during the Miami Heat’s 150-129 win over the Washington Wizards Tuesday night. Maybe you would have guessed 83 points for Luka Dončić, Anthony Edwards, or even Victor Wembanyama if the Spurs let him play enough minutes, but a defense-first player averaging 18 a game like Adebayo? Nobody saw that coming. And because nobody saw it coming, Kellerman believes it’s skewing some of the reaction to Adebayo, who should be celebrated for the feat, not criticized.
“Fans have an idea of the type of guy that’s supposed to break this record, and they resent it when it’s not that type of guy,” [Kellerman said on _Game Over_ with co-host Rich Paul](https://www.theringer.com/podcasts/game-over-with-max-kellerman-and-rich-paul/2026/03/11/bam-drops-83-jaylen-brown-ejected-mvp-race-heats-up-and-emails).
With the fear that this might diminish arguments about the best offensive players in NBA history, analysts, commentators, and fans are stooping to criticizing Adebayo because his 83 points don’t fit their narratives.
“And then they have this emotional attachment to Kobe that they feel like it somehow discredits what Kobe did, or Kobe’s feat was more impressive,” Kellerman continued of Adebayo’s critics. “Yeah, Kobe’s feat was more impressive. If you wanted to say which game would I rather have, I would rather have Kobe’s game. There are better games than Kobe’s 81-point game; that’s not what the 81-point game is about. It’s about how many points he scored!”
“In this case, people’s emotions about Kobe are overriding their frontal lobes, where the judgment is,” Kellerman said. “And it’s making them say foolish stuff about Bam.”
Foolish stuff, such as [dismissing the feat](https://awfulannouncing.com/nba/bam-adebayo-83-point-game-kobe-bryant-critics-media.html) because it came against the Washington Wizards, featured 43 free-throw attempts and some hijinks in the final minutes to get Adebayo a few extra possessions. To be fair, the final minutes of Tuesday night’s game were a really bad brand of basketball. But just as the shenanigans that took place in 1962 shouldn’t overshadow Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point performance, the final minutes from Tuesday night should not overshadow Adebayo’s 83-point feat.
Adebayo’s 83 points surpassed Kobe’s 81-point game, but it didn’t erase his 2006 performance from history. Bryant was arguably a top-10 NBA player of all time, but there is some revisionist history in judging his career. And part of that might stem from the fact that Jordan fans can be Kobe fans.
Kobe reminds Jordan fans of Jordan, without being a threat to Jordan. It’s part of why Jordan supporters are often such staunch critics of LeBron James. Because LeBron’s career is considered a threat to Jordan’s, but as great as Kobe was, as much as he looked like Jordan on the court and sounded like him off it, nobody will make the argument that Kobe was better than Jordan. Instead, fans were able to enjoy Kobe’s career because he reminded them of Jordan. And that almost unanimous love for Kobe was on full display this week, when some fans and analysts went so far as to make the ridiculous claim that Adebayo should have stopped short of 81 points out of respect to Bryant.