By Aris Barkas / info@eurohoops.net
LILLE, France –USA center Bam Adebayo expressed his respect for the South Sudan team after the game between the two sides in the second round of the Olympic Games basketball tournament.
“Just think about it, that team got to start really competing in 2017. That’s not that long ago. And then obviously the history around South Sudan is just incredible,” Adebayo said. “It’s inspiring. Like I said before, it’s true respect from me. What they’ve done. What Luol [Deng] has done. You got to respect it.”
Adebayo was coming from his top performance in the 2024 Olympics so far. The Miami Heat big man scored a team-high 18 points on 7 – 10 shots and grabbed eight rebounds to help USA get a 103 – 86 win.
“I had open shots and I made them,” Adebayo said, asked if the speculation that he would be benched vs. South Sudan served as extra motivation for him. “So, you know, that’s the karma of the world. That’s God, you know, he put something in the earth and, you know, God makes it seem a different way.”
“I think being able to switch one through five, being able to guard off positions, that makes me, you know, that much versatile now, you know, being able to space the floor,” Adebayo added on being an ideal matchup for the South Sudan team. “And obviously, you know, doing in-between things like the point center, it just gives us a more diverse team.”
Steve Kerr sent in his “second unit” relatively early in the game and they delivered.
“I just think Steve trusted us. You know, I feel like he looks at the bench, you know, that spark to come off the bench and really give us a boost. And we did that tonight.”