Bam Adebayo’s 83-point game against the Washington Wizards earlier in the week has seen him receive opulent praise from some legends of the game. Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal… Well, it seems that the list of people celebrating Adebayo’s achievement is rather short; quite surprising, since it should have been a straight ticket for him to be placed on a pedestal.
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The greatest of all time, Michael Jordan, who generally does not comment on what’s happening in the league, congratulated Adebayo on it. Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal soon followed suit, asking kids to follow Bam’s example. Adebayo believes that if Kobe Bryant were alive, he would be happy that his record was surpassed.
However, Jordan and Shaq are in the minority. Instead of flowers, Adebayo has been incessantly criticized ever since the 83-point game immortalized him in the record books. Brian Windhorst, Tim McMahon, and Anthony Slater have already rained on Bam’s parade, with Slater even calling it a “little fake.” Now Hall of Famer Charles Barkley has joined the party.
Chuck has claimed that back in the day, opposition players would have put Adebayo to pasture for trying to break a scoring record. “First of all, he’s so lucky to be playing in 2026,” began Barkley.
“We would have knocked him on his a**. We would have killed him back in the day. And I’m not doing any hyperbole or anything. Let me tell you something, back in my day, if you were up by 20 and shooting 3, we were going to put your a** in the stands. That was like an unwritten rule,” he continued.
“We would call guys like, ‘Hey, hey, hey, they are up 30, if they shoot a 3, we would call time out, like hey, I can’t tell you what team it was … we are going to give you a bonus every time you knock the hell out of somebody who’s shooting 3,'” added Barkley.
“He is so lucky he’s playing in 2026. … We would’ve killed him back in the day.” —Chuck on Bam’s 83-point performance.
Charles Barkley didn’t hold back his disappointment in the Wizards for allowing Bam Adebayo to reach 83 points pic.twitter.com/zbkmY0cw53
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) March 15, 2026
However, all this criticism has not dented Bam‘s spirits. The Heat center has been in a celebratory mood and nobody since the historic night last Tuesday. Who can blame him for that?
By the end of the first quarter in that game at Kaseya Center in Miami, Adebayo had already scored 31 points, tying for the Heat’s first-half record in just 12 minutes. At the stroke of the first half, he was already on 43 points.
Bam ended the night shooting 7-for-22 from the 3-point range. He also set another all-time NBA record by successfully shooting 36 free throws from 43 attempts.
“It’s Wilt, me, and then Kobe. That sounds crazy,” Adebayo said after the game. “To me, it’s wondering what he [Kobe] would say. My mind is like “What would he say to me?’ He’d probably say, ‘Do it again.'”
Barkley might have his own opinion on the record. But, as far as basketball fans are concerned, they would all be happy that it is not Chuck’s era anymore… No disco, no frosted tips, no matching tracksuits, and no knocking people out on basketball courts!
