The Ringer NBA Show
The Bam 83-Point Discourse Inferno. Plus, Momentous Inflection Points for SGA, Wemby, and More | Group Chat
12 Mar 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello and welcome to Group Chat. I am Justin Verrier and joining me, welcome back to Rob Mahoney and J. Kyle Mann.
Chapter 2: What happened during Bam Adebayo's 83-point game?
Gentlemen, how were your days off? Especially, how were your JV days? Did you celebrate like I did? You know, I tried to and I tried to tune into the pod only to find that you had turned it into a Jon Bernthal clip show. What happened while we were gone? I think you have to ask our listeners who are on a completely different level.
I appreciate the feedback, even though it did send me down an existential spiral. Well, it's good to know that you're limber and agile, Justin, from what I've heard. You can't leave Justin at home alone. You never know. The cops are going to be called on this guy. That's right. How are you guys? How's your content diet? Did you get away from the NBA? Are you back in the mix? What's going on?
You know, I tried to, and then Shea became the MVP overnight. Well, not really overnight, but confirmed it overnight. Bam out of bio scored more points than God. Every time I leave, incredible things happen. So I have taken the lesson. I will never be taking any PTO ever again.
I'm going to stay locked into my chair and my couch in the arenas as I have been told and instructed by the universe to do. I don't know what else to take from this weekend at this point. Rob, the thing that I'm most concerned about and I wanted to ask you about was I believe you ate like a pulled pork sandwich that you posted to Instagram.
Chapter 3: How is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander positioning himself for MVP?
Is that right? You ate some kind of, what was the sandwich action there going on? Because you're a master of food Instagram and I just, I wanted to follow up and get some deets. Why are you diet watching me? What's your problem? Am I die watching you? I think I'm enviously wanting to have whatever you're having. This is, I'm just, you know. First of all, straight pastrami.
An important correction. That was your street ball nickname also, right? Straight pastrami. I would welcome it. Weren't you in like a vacation destination sort of place? Don't those two things kind of clash where it's like, hanging by the pool, but like eating just like beef straight to the face. Only if you have shame, you know, I think you just have to welcome all parts of yourself.
The one that wants to be by the pool and to gorge on pastrami.
Chapter 4: What makes Victor Wembanyama a standout player for the Spurs?
And as long as you find that inner balance, no one can take it away from you. That's right. That's a beautiful statement. Thank you. We're going to talk about some other big topics later in this podcast.
A lot of things are happening in the NBA, and I think people are talking about them, but probably not with the requisite amount of stakes and just kind of a nod to history that I think that they probably need to. But first, we've got to talk about this story that goes directly into that. That's the Bam Adebayo 83-point explosion. uh, just what a night.
And I will say since that night in practically like minutes after it was confirmed that he was going to break Kobe's record second time, second highest point total in the NBA. Um, it just instantly became one of the most toxic discourses I think I've ever seen in, in just all topics of pop culture. Like, You need barbed wire.
We need to start building bunkers and build a century tower just to even try to start to pierce through this topic. Can we start there? Because what happened? I get that Bam scored all these points. I get that there's some controversy around, oh, it's a tanking opponent.
Chapter 5: What are the implications of the Hornets' recent performance?
Oh, it required all these free throws to get there. Oh, the intentional fouling to kind of goose the point totals. All of that I understand. But how did this go from zero to third rail instantly?
I'm glad you brought this up because I do have some things sketched out here where I do feel like this is something of a four quadrant story in terms of like all of the hot button things that just get people going. So I have written down first and foremost, like the Wizards being the team who would allow this, I think just leans right back into the tanking wars. What an absolute disaster.
I've seen some people being like, you can't knock Bam because this was a Wizards problem. They shouldn't have let him do that. They shouldn't have played Alexar for 19 minutes or whatever it is. So it just gets us back right back a month ago. There's also a lot of this fucking guy like this fucking guy did this, which I think has been a surprise to anyone.
Zach Cram did a story on the ringer, I think, two years ago, kind of looking at the possible players who could threaten Wilt's record. And Bam wasn't a part of his top 50. Well, yeah, because who would ever think that? Well, I want to take a little relish off that. I would say it's a this guy, not a this fucking guy. You know, like if Haywood Highsmith had gone for 83, that's a this fucking guy.
Yeah, I guess so. See, that doesn't even seem plausible. This is like within plausibility, but still like a complete like blow your wood back. I'm surprised. You guys are putting weird emphasis on this phrase that I don't typically do. Because you're going... Justin, you're saying this fucking... It's more like this fucking guy. You're right. This fucking guy? It's a good correction.
Yeah, the emphasis there is a little... I don't know if we're doing... I don't want to quibble on the misuse of the term. But I think... Something that's interesting is like why, thinking back to why Cram probably, Cram was probably thinking shot making threes probably. I'm just guessing. I don't remember this piece.
But I mean, Bam has sort of like to be a little more, you know, official about it here with like how he's grown. I wrote this down. Bam's... We talked about this earlier in the season that it was pretty noticeable immediately. His three-point rate was just crazy. Obviously, he's been putting in the work, spotting up 31% of the time. In 21-22, that number was 5%.
So that's a gigantic shift in approach. So I think it was a combination of, yeah, he was making shots. He's shown some pretty big improvement there. But then also... The Wizards are just acutely ill-equipped to stop a Bam out of bio because Alex Saar, for as promising as he is, might as well be a saloon door.
He's a minor inconvenience to a guy like Bam because Bam is just going to hit him and get to the rim. Saar does a lot for as skinny as he is. But...
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Chapter 6: How does Bam's scoring impact the discourse around the NBA?
And that's ultimately what we're talking about. It's like, how will Bam Adebayo be remembered as a player? And like it or not, he's going to be remembered for a long time as the second highest-scoring player in NBA history. Why would you think you're better than that just to avoid like, oh, my God, we couldn't possibly intentionally foul a few times to get a couple more possessions.
Like, get over yourselves, I think would be my main response. Like, that's a monumental opportunity, and I think you should take it. It's a new segment we should do. Get over yourself. Hey, you're not better than me. It's just most of this podcast, to be honest with you, is get over yourselves, including us saying that to each other.
I mean, and also the Wizards like, you know, stop them if you're so mad about it. It's like they couldn't. You know, we were joking on the text about because we were laughing about like, oh, is that really? And then they show the replay and like Will Riley hacked the shit out of him on it. It's like, you know, shame on them, I think is probably the way you could flip this narrative.
It's just like if the if the heat if you want to be mad about the heat.
gaming and spamming this one thing it's just like it's really about that the wizards just could not stop them from spamming it so uh you know i don't know that that seems like that's probably the ugly underbelly of the whole thing i had to take about this can i say could i get one off here because the free throws part of this was really interesting to me and i went back you know um and you you your mind thinks like okay well free throws are bloated right
You know, we've had 80 NBA seasons. The 2025-6 season ranks 66th all-time in free throw attempts per game. The big thing here is the free throw percentage. Of the top 10 all-time seasons that we've had in the NBA for free throw percentage league-wide, the last seven seasons, going back to 2019-20, are all inside the top 10. So seven of the top 10 have happened in the last seven seasons.
So really, it's guys are shooting the ball really, really well. Yep. My my feeling here is these free throws are always a huge part of these big scoring outbursts. My thing is, I think that free throws and more specifically the Noah shooting system are the GLP one of scoring outbursts in twenty twenty six. Did you really earn it? That's that I think is my take.
Did you really earn it if you're if you're doing free throws? Pointing the finger at the Noah shooting system is the most Kyle Mann shit I have ever heard in my life. Wait, so just so I understand this. So the Noah shooting system, which is like a big old contraption that's supposed to help your shooting form. That is at fault for high scoring?
I think all of the failings of modern life, it sounds like. Well, okay. So I had this take, and I actually vetted this with a couple of people that are boots on the ground and would know, and they were like, that's not true. So it's not true. We know that. I'll continue to say that that's my tinfoil sombrero. No, I mean, just guys are making free throws at a ridiculous clip. What is that about?
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Chapter 7: What are the historical comparisons to Bam's scoring achievement?
I just want to... Just kidding. I want to be on record. I love Shea. I just want to say. Yeah. You guys are laughing. Do you? I feel like both of you might need to apologize a little bit to Shea. You know? Oh, my Jesus. God in heaven. I'm just saying. What an arc for me. One of the three of us has been stumping for Shea. What an arc for me.
One of the very first videos I ever made on the Dime Drop was Shea Gill just out just preaching the gospel, Shea. I've made so many videos about Shea. He was in my banner. And somehow this is you live long enough and you're the villain. I've come back to we're weird about Shea. It's just I had to get that off. Just really, really funny how life works. Now, I hate Shea for some reason.
Check the fucking receipts, folks. That's right. I watched that video from Kyle, so I'm definitely in the same category. Same thing. Well, no, but I feel like Mondays... Was it Mondays the game against the Nuggets was a bit of an inflection point just in kind of the overall... supremacy, I guess, for best player in the world, MVP, however you want to categorize it.
That felt like we've talked about Heisen moments with the MVP conversation. That felt like the type of thing that I will probably be thinking about the rest of the season, perhaps even longer into Shay's career, because it felt like the type of thing without the full compliment on his roster, no J-Dub, no Hartenstein, no Chet even. to win that game in that fashion felt like a moment.
And so I almost think about it, Rob, like Chris does on the watch back in the day of kind of like the best in the world belt sort of thing. I don't know if Shea's the best player in the world. I don't know if he's necessarily the runaway MVP at this point. But in terms of the belt, like who has the moment right now, it feels like that's Shea's. That one feels inarguable.
I think the other stuff though is fully up for grabs. I think it's a totally reasonable stance to claim that Shea is the best player in the world right now. That in terms of snapshot wise, not just who has the moment, not just who has like, you know, who's on the tip of everybody's tongue, but the actual basketball that they've been playing for like a rolling four to six week period,
he's been better than anybody. And that's including coming back from injury during that time. So I just think he's, we already knew who he was as a scorer. We've seen it over a long enough time to be record-breaking.
I think games like that one against the Nuggets, watching how confidently he was moving the ball in that game, and the very delicate balance for any great scorer, because I think one of the problems when you are someone like Shea, who can get to any spot you want, it like warps your brain chemistry, right? What you think is possible because you can do anything becomes very hard to reel back in.
And over the course of that game where you had like 15 freaking turn or 15 assists and zero turnovers over the course of that game was just like a tightrope walk all night of an isolation score, seeing two or three hovering defenders at all times and making the exact right pass at the exact right moment. But also... forcing the issue when he needed to.
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