00:00 I come from a single-wide trailer in the rural area of a small town in North Carolina.
00:09 Like, nobody, if you go to my hometown, you'd be like, "There's no way somebody makes it
00:14 out of this."
00:17 I was very shy when I was younger, and I was one of those kids that was really standoffish.
00:23 My mom raised me to do everything right, be on time, go to school, have perfect attendance.
00:29 But I never said anything when I went to school.
00:32 So my earlier years was like a struggle, because I wanted friends, but I didn't know how to
00:36 communicate, because it was always me and my mom.
00:39 I knew how to communicate with my mom, but at the end of the day, I had to grow to actually
00:46 talk to people.
00:48 Coming from where we come from, and then having to shift from a small mindset of, you know,
00:56 I'm good where I'm at, and then going to playing basketball, and now you're going from city
01:02 to city every weekend.
01:05 It was definitely a shock to me, because I didn't want to grow as a person.
01:11 I was like, "I'm cool with the friends that I have.
01:13 I don't need any more friends.
01:16 These are my friends until the day I die."
01:20 College was like my preparation for getting me ready for the NBA, and it kind of woke
01:26 me up to what I thought the NBA was going to be like.
01:30 Our schedule was packed from sunup to sundown, and that's where it really hit me that I was
01:36 on my own and becoming an adult.
01:39 So sitting in my dorm, I had to figure out how I could understand being on time, getting
01:48 my classwork done, going to the gym, extra hours in the gym, staying focused in the classroom,
01:54 and I had to handle all of that at once.
01:57 And sitting in my room, I remember breaking down, because I was like, "Yo, why am I here
02:02 at this point?"
02:03 You know, that's when you get in those phases where basketball is not going the way it's
02:07 supposed to go, and then obviously the classwork just compounds on top of that to the point
02:13 where it's like, "Why do I have to wake up at 6 a.m., go work out, come back, go to class,
02:22 take tests, and then you walk around and you see all these regular students.
02:25 They get to wake up at 9 o'clock, go to their 10 a.m.s.
02:29 They don't have to do all these sprints that aren't guaranteeing anything."
02:35 College was a wake-up for me, but I just had to figure out how to lock in and make everything
02:41 simple, but make everything the main focus.
02:50 She is one of those people who she's going to find a way, she's going to make a way,
02:55 and even if she has nothing to work with, she's somehow going to make a way for me to
03:02 have clothes on my back, food on the table.
03:07 And I didn't really realize I was poor until I was probably like 16, because my mom had
03:13 done such a great job of comforting me and making me feel like I had enough, but also
03:19 telling me like, "We don't have a lot."
03:23 And she's one of those people, she was always driven to, one, take care of me, but also
03:28 make sure we were both strict.
03:30 So having that moment of me and my mom being at that table in New York, and you see the
03:37 ticker going down, and you get that moment of, with whatever pick the team selects and
03:45 it's your name, it's like everything that you've been through, it's like a matter of
03:51 10-second span where you're like, "Dang."
03:54 And then you remember everything that you went through, you, your family, parents, whoever
03:59 was with you going through anything in life at that point.
04:04 It all goes through your mind and you walk across the stage and it's like, most people
04:10 don't get this opportunity.
04:19 I wanted people to know my name, who I was, what I represented, and what I come from.
04:27 The first time I really understood that it was a business was my rookie year and a guy
04:32 from my summer league team was at the gym.
04:35 So I pull up, his car started outside the front door.
04:38 And I'm thinking like, "All right, he's just putting stuff in the car, whatever."
04:41 And he was like, "Nah, man, I got cut."
04:43 I was like, "I'm going to just work out and try to find a new deal."
04:46 So by the time I walked past him and tell him, "Good luck," I sit in my locker and like
04:51 two minutes later, the guy who, he got cut, the next guy for his job walked in.
04:58 So that's when it hit me, it was like, it's a business.
05:01 They don't care about your feelings.
05:03 They care about the end goal, which is winning.
05:09 It takes a will, it takes an effort, a sacrifice.
05:13 I mean, just a mentality to really put your body on the line to go through that.
05:18 Because a lot of people be like, "Nah, I don't want to play defense.
05:21 I just want to go play offense because it's fun."
05:23 It's funner than getting stops, you know.
05:26 Everybody always looks at the last column, which is how many points did he score in the
05:30 game?
05:31 And people forget that that other side of the court exists because of the entertainment
05:37 business.
05:38 So for me, it's just, it's that will, it's that passion, it's that mentality.
05:43 It's what I've been through.
05:46 And it's just one of those niches that I know I have.
05:50 I want to get defensive player of the year just so I can have the award.
05:56 More than anything, just being consistent.
05:57 I feel like the hardest thing to do in this lifetime is be consistent every day.
06:02 I feel like that's a standard that I'll try to uphold this season.
06:06 I always get a pinch me moment when I do get to walk into the arena.
06:11 You think about the history of some franchises.
06:15 Like Dwyane Wade was my teammate at one point.
06:18 I still get those pinch me moments because it's just, this is the history of our franchise.
06:22 So walking through there, it's like you get to see when they won on those amazing runs
06:27 with the big three.
06:28 You get to hear about the history of when D Wade, UD won the first one.
06:33 So yeah, I still get those pinch me moments.
06:47 Fans are our future and getting them to understand that they have a life that matters.
06:54 No matter where they are on earth, their life matters to somebody, to someone, to whoever
07:01 it is.
07:02 But this camp is really for them to understand that Bam Adebayo cares about your life.
07:14 The fact that me and my team have been to the finals twice out of the last four years,
07:19 but every year they'd be like, "Oh, Miami is a dark horse."
07:25 Miami is not good enough to do that again.
07:28 The first time was a fluke and it's a lot of disrespect.
07:36 Like I said, we've been to two finals in the last four years.
07:40 We've been to three Eastern Conference finals in the last four years.
07:44 And I don't think anybody else in the East has done that in the last four years.
07:49 And we're doing it with 60% of our roster being undrafted and helping us win and somewhat
07:56 at a point carrying us to the finals.
07:59 You know, for me, I feel like that should be a bigger story than it is.
08:04 Everybody always seems to be shocked when we're at the top again.
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