Ever since Bam Adebayo dropped 83 points against the Wizards, the question of its impact on Kobe Bryant’s fans has been a talking point across the NBA world. While most of his fans are watching from the crowd, a lot of the current NBA players are also his fans or have grown up watching him.
Among them is the Bucks’ guard Kevin Porter Jr., who recently brought up Bam Adebayo’s 83-point night on his livestream. He went as far as to say that he’s confident he will break Adebayo’s record just because it is a matter of respect now for Kobe Bryant.
“50 point game? I don’t know, I was out of my mind for real, for real,” said Porter Jr. in the clip that eventually went viral on social media while recalling his own career-high, which was coincidentally against his current team, the Bucks, when he was on the Rockets (he dropped 50 points vs. the Bucks in April 2021).
“I’m trying to drop 80. Shoutout to Kobe, shoutout to Bam, because I’m beating that one day. For sure. Now that Kobe got beat, I gotta beat Bam just for the respect of Kobe. You feel me?” said Porter Jr. in an eye-opening statement.
“Why y’all talking about drop 100 stop the cap. Can I have some… There’s a thing called manifestation, you’ve got to manifest what you believe in,” he eventually clarified.
Considering that the Bucks do not have Cam Thomas anymore and Giannis Antetokounmpo is sidelined, with all the defensive attention that Ryan Rollins will draw, Kevin Porter Jr. has the perfect stretch of a few games to give it a real go if he is serious.
Of course, it is very, very unlikely that he will be able to replicate the usage rate that Bam Adebayo eventually had in his performance. His 83-point game is the modern era’s highest individual scoring game, and you don’t see such records being broken every day.
However, with the Bucks’ front office reportedly wanting to shut down Antetokounmpo for the season, their remaining games can be viewed as the perfect time to give their young players, like Kevin Porter Jr., a chance to regain their confidence, while assessing which ones are cut out to stay on the team next season.
With 11 games left, the Bucks are set to face the Trail Blazers tonight in Portland, who do not have their star player, Damian Lillard, available to play.
Porter Jr’s career-high performance also came at a time when no one was expecting anything great from the rebuilding Rockets, and they faced the Bucks, who lost Antetokounmpo within the first few minutes of that game.
There is an eerie similarity to the circumstances, and if Porter Jr. does pull it off, Kobe Bryant would likely be smiling at him from the heavens. If anything pays the perfect homage to Kobe Bryant’s legacy, it is the endless pursuit of excellence.
But let’s be real, the Trail Blazers are still a play-in team, and if I were a betting man, I would always bet against Porter Jr. beating Bam Adebayo’s record against them.
