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When teams began reporting to Orlando for the NBA restart, Bam Adebayo was not with the Miami Heat initially.
Now, it’s been revealed that Adebayo tested positive for the coronavirus over the summer.
Thankfully, he has since cleared quarantine and rejoined his teammates in Orlando.
“I was pretty much fine the whole time,” Adebayo told ESPN. “It’s a crazy thing because somebody could be asymptomatic and then the next person — you don’t know what it could do to their body.”
The emergence of Adebayo in his third NBA season, as well as the addition of former Wildcat sharpshooter Tyler Herro in the 2019 NBA Daft, has helped Miami race out to a 41-24 record that has them holding the 4th seed in the Eastern Conference playoff race. They’ll begin their eight-game regular season next week before postseason play begins August 16th.
Adebayo becomes the second former Kentucky Wildcats star to test positive for the virus after Eric Bledsoe did so as well. Bledsoe too has since cleared quarantine and rejoined the Milwaukee Bucks. He returned to practice on Friday.
“That was pretty much the first time I worked out since I found out I had COVID-19,” Bledsoe told The Athletic. “It was fun, man. I was exhausted, but I got to catch the game, something I love and just get back to my sanctuary, so it was pretty fun.”
Bledsoe described his quarantine experience, which largely was playing a lot of Call of Duty by himself for two weeks.
“Man, it couldn’t get no worse than being laid up in the house for two weeks not doing nothing, so I think mentally I’m fine from that aspect,” Bledsoe said, adding, “Pretty much the whole time, I was laid up. I really couldn’t do nothing or be around people. Call of Duty, man. I’m pretty sure I saw Donte (DiVincenzo) and D.J. (Wilson) talk pretty much about that. I kind of just stayed in touch with them through that and texted them to see how things were going and stuff like that. And they reached out — pretty much the whole team reached out to me, checking on me pretty much every day.”
Bledsoe and the Bucks will enter the restart in Florida with an NBA-best 53-12 record and favorites to represent the Eastern Conference in the 2020 NBA Finals.
If Miami and Milwaukee hold their current seeds and advance past the first round of the playoffs, we’ll see these former Wildcats battling for a spot in the Eastern Conference Finals.