At his youth camp in Miami on Sunday, Heat big man Bam Adebayo received the NBA’s Social Justice Champion award for the 2025/26 season, writes Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel.

After being awarded the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar trophy, the 29-year-old expressed excitement for the upcoming season while acknowledging the apparent strength of the Eastern Conference, Winderman notes.

“It’s going to be great competition,” Adebayo said. “And that’s what we look for. That’s what brings the best out of players. We have great competition. So I’m looking forward to it. It’s going to be a fun season.”

As our list of 2026/27 roster counts shows, the Heat currently have 12 players on standard contracts, the lowest total in the NBA. Adebayo said he’s curious to see how the team fills those final few spots but believes in the current group.

“We’ll figure it out,” he said. “We don’t really worry about the outside noise too much. We’ve done a lot more with less.”

• According to Winderman, Adebayo said he’ll have to adjust his leadership style after Miami essentially swapped out a handful of young players for veterans like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bobby Portis and Tim Hardaway Jr. “The thing about leadership is when you want to impact somebody, you meet them in the middle,” Adebayo said. “So obviously I’m going to meet guys where they are and we’ll go from there. Obviously it is different because you’re going from trying to teach somebody the game of basketball in the NBA terms, and now you’ve got vets who’ve been around in the league. So I feel like it’ll be easier conversations, I feel like we’ll get to the points a lot quicker.” The three-time All-Star also thinks point guard Davion Mitchell is primed for a “great season” after losing weight this offseason, Winderman adds.
• In an interview with Lia Capizzi of Italian outlet Domani, forward Simone Fontecchio said he received more lucrative contract offers this summer but preferred to stay with the Heat. “My priority was to continue my NBA career,” Fontecchio said, per Dario Skerletic of Sportando. “(President) Pat Riley told me he wanted me to stay, and then coach Erik Spoelstra made it clear that he really wanted to keep me. I’ve always felt their trust, even when I fell out of the rotation.” Fontecchio thinks he can be a positive “complementary player” alongside Antetokounmpo and is looking forward to joining the Italian national team ahead of the August qualifying window for the 2027 FIBA World Cup.
• The play of Nikola Jovic could be a “swing” factor for the Heat, since his four-year $62.4MM contract looks very difficult to move right now, Winderman states in a mailbag. The Serbian forward will need a bounce-back year to be a useful piece on the trade market.