Bam Adebayo's unreal night leaps Wembanyama feat while opening floodgates

Bam Adebayo just broke Kobe Bryant's scoring record of 81 points by playing the most unethical style of basketball imaginable. Even worse, on his way to doing it, he passed Victor Wembanyama for the fastest 50-point game in NBA history. As a sophomore, the Alien reached the significant benchmark in 26 minutes. Bam did it in 25. He's not supposed to do that, so others may double down.

That doesn't look like someone who's very impressed. If Adebayo can score 83, why can't Wemby drop 90? If all you have to do is have a great opening quarter and then start hunting for it against a porous team like the Wizards, why wouldn't you?

So many people thought Vic was talking about Oklahoma City's play style when he made his "ethical basketball" comments months ago, but he was talking about things like this. What Miami played was an ugly brand of basketball just to prop one guy up. They won, but it wasn't about winning for them at that point. Not everyone took that very well.

Wemby and other NBA players may chase the scoring records more

Usually only in the headlines for complaining about the Defensive Player of the Year award or something related to his relationship with WNBA superstar A'ja Wilson, Bam just went out there to have some fun tonight. Good for him for scoring so many points, but, and forgive me for being so blunt, he's not that guy.

Kobe, rest his soul, was and is still one of the most respected legends to walk on an NBA basketball court. His 81 points were epic because they were necessary to beat the Toronto Raptors. That was a close game they were down in. His teammates were Smush Parker, Kwame Brown, and an assortment of obscure players who didn't mesh well at all, to be nice.

He took it upon himself to will that team to a regular season win because he brought the fight every night, and losing was a non-starter for the Mamba. Bam's was nowhere close to that. The Heat were up 20+ points with the game over and began intentionally fouling to get the ball back. Stat-padding was on the menu in Miami, and it was a disgusting dish.

Watching Bryant's record be broken like that has rubbed plenty of fans the wrong way based on the outrage across social media, and I can imagine there will be players who feel the same. This is a guy who averaged 19 points and 4 free throws per game. He shot 43 times at the charity stripe tonight. Bean's single-game high at the line was 27. What are we doing here?