“I was eating dinner when it happened,” Jobanjit Dayal said, a junior who has been a fan of the NBA his whole life. “A friend called me. All he said was “Bam [Adebayo] has 83”.”
On March 10, a player in the NBA did the unthinkable. Quarter by quarter, Miami Heat superstar Bam Adebayo managed to record a stat line of 83 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists, and 4 stocks (steals + blocks) in a win over the Washington Wizards. This scoring night is one of the highest numbers of points any one player has generated in a single game in NBA history, second only to Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point performance in 1962.
“At first, I thought it was fake,” Yazan Rawashdeh said, a watcher of the NBA since he was 12. “I know Bam as a good player, he has all-star potential, but I expected a really high scoring guard like Luka [Dončić] to get that amount before Bam would.”
But it was real. As the shock wore off, the focus of the fans shifted from the initial disbelief of such a night to what it means for the NBA as a whole.
“Of course, the NBA doesn’t control how much players score,” Rawashdeh said. “But if there were players who scored like that every night, it’d definitely increase the viewership. [Fans] want to see people like Bam just go crazy.”
Despite this, coaches often elect to substitute a player out of the game when they come close to breaking a record, even at the expense of the player and their fans. This practice is intended to preserve the sanctity of certain records, even when audiences would rather watch their favorite players make history.
“They should already be letting players break records,” Dayal said. “What’s the point of keeping so many old records when newer generations are going to keep showing up? Let the new players make a name for themselves, rather than keep the old. The game’s changed so much that those records don’t really benefit anything otherwise.”
However, the performance was not just skill. A culmination of special circumstances led to this record – a short-handed Heat lineup missing two of the team’s biggest scorers, a Wizards defense that allows the second most points per game, and Adebayo still trying to score even when the game was all but won.
“The coach definitely should have taken him out,” Cohen Oster said, a varsity basketball player at North. “He was still going 100% even when they were up by 20.”
Regardless, the record was broken with just over a minute left on the clock with Adebayo at the free-throw line. The energy in the Heat stadium was like no other as history was made.
“I just respect him more now,” Dayal said. “I can’t even believe I watched that happen. We’re all witnesses.”
