Bam Adebayo’s 83-point game against the Washington Wizards from earlier this week was historic, because the Miami Heat star surpassed Kobe Bryant to put in the second-highest scoring figures in a single game in NBA history. The Mamba had put 81, and since Adebayo’s incredible outing, most of the NBA community has wondered how Bryant would have reacted to the moment.
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Records are meant to be broken and it had been two decades that Bryant held it. But some people, rather bizarrely, claimed that Adebayo crossing Bryant’s numbers was disrespectful to the Los Angeles Lakers legend.
Ballers in the league, however, don’t see eye to eye with those trolls, or hero-worshippers of Bryant. Adebayo for one, feels that Bryant would have been thrilled to see him score 83 in a single game.
On the Dan Patrick show, he said, “If it was the other way around Kobe would’ve been like ‘I’m shooting for whatever I can get!’”
“If the dead could talk, I firmly believe he’d be like ‘congratulations young fella. You did something I thought nobody could even reach for the next 40-50 years!”, the 28-year-old added.
Bam Adebayo on people being salty he passed Kobe’s 81:
“If it was the other way around Kobe would’ve been like ‘I’m shooting for whatever I can get!’ If the dead could talk, I firmly believe he’d be like ‘congratulations young fella. You did something I thought nobody could even… pic.twitter.com/EegsHzRApX
— Heat Central (@HeatCulture13) March 13, 2026
Adebayo has been having to deal with a ton of criticism for his performance, which is honestly baffling. Some feel he should have respected Bryant. Some feel he was simply stat-padding against a hopeless Wizards side. And then there were some calling him out for shooting going to the free throw line 43 times.
In reality, the whole community should have just appreciated him. It’s not often we see records like this get broken in the NBA. They are once-in-a-lifetime moments, and if Bryant were actually alive, he would say the same.
Adebayo is now second only to Wilt Chamberlain on the list, and his 100-point game suddenly looks a lot more believable. That said, it’s a figure that still looks almost impossible to beat. Or is it?
