Gilbert Arenas isn’t buying the story that Bam Adebayo’s exit in Miami’s play-in loss to the Charlotte Hornets was purely about injury.
On The LaVar Ball Show, the former three-time All-Star said he believed the Heat had a different motive: losing the game would help them land a lottery pick. Arenas framed it as a business decision, not a medical one, and made clear he thought Miami kept Adebayo on the sideline after the collision with LaMelo Ball for that reason.
“And I didn’t like what they did about the Bam thing. Oh, and I said it.
I said, ‘Hey, can y’all apologize to the boy now? You really thought Bam’s butt was hurting for him to sit out of the game?
They lost that game so they could get a lottery pick.”
“Come on, let’s say it how it really is. They needed a lottery pick over there.
He was never coming back in the game. You think his wife, a four-time MVP, would be like, ‘What’s wrong?
Your butt hurts?’ Really?
Is that what we’re doing in his family? No.
Pat Riley walked his a** in there. ‘Hey, hey, hey, you better sit your ass down.
We lose this game, we get a lottery pick.'”
“Tomorrow they’re going to be sitting there like, ‘Hey, Bam. Bam.
Good job. Good job, boy.’
So it’s like, y’all over here bashing… LaMelo’s like this. ‘Oh, they wanted the lottery pick.
That’s why he didn’t come back in the game.’ Don’t pull that narrative.”
“And that’s what I didn’t like. I know the business.
I know what the business is. I sat in the room and listened to them talking, sitting there like, ‘So, he’s going to get 1.5 if he averages 20.
And then, so y’all are going to sub him in, and you’re going to start him, and then sub him out after one minute so he goes to 19.8.'”
Arenas’ comments have stirred reaction because they cut against the version most fans accepted after the game. Adebayo left late in Miami’s overtime loss after a hard foul from LaMelo Ball and did not return. Ball was later fined $60,000 by the NBA for unnecessary and reckless conduct, and plenty of fans blamed him for Adebayo’s injury and the Heat’s elimination.
Arenas, though, pushed back on that blame. He argued that Miami had no reason to rush Adebayo back into a game it was already on the brink of losing, especially if the defeat could improve the team’s draft position.
There’s still no proof behind that claim. Neither the NBA nor the Heat has said Adebayo exaggerated the injury, and Miami has maintained that he could not return because of what happened in the game.
Still, the optics have kept the conversation alive. By dropping the play-in game, the Heat ended up with the No. 13 overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft. Miami later used that pick as part of the blockbuster Giannis Antetokounmpo trade, though at the time there was no solid indication that move was already locked in.
The larger issue here is how quickly a messy moment can turn into competing stories. LaMelo Ball took the heat for months after the play that sent Adebayo out. Arenas thinks that criticism was misplaced and that the real suspicion should fall on Miami, which he says had every reason to welcome the lottery pick.
For now, that remains Arenas’ theory, not a verified fact.
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