This past Friday in Vegas, while many players were in town for NBA Summer League action, Miami Heat big man Bam Adebayo got in some kind of fight with his recently departed teammate Tyler Herro. In last month's trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Heat sent Herro to the Milwaukee Bucks, ending his seven-year stint alongside Adebayo. The fight between them took place in the morning, in a practice court at a hotel; later that day but before news broke of the fight, Herro said in an interview that "it's all love" with his former team.
As with any event described by the NBA media, the details of this story took on many forms and involved many imperfect synonyms. So what exactly happened in last weekend's scuffle? That depends on who you ask.
ESPN's Shams Charania, who broke the story, put it like this:
Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro got into a physical altercation in Las Vegas on Friday in which Adebayo struck Herro, sources tell ESPN.
The altercation occurred at a practice court in a Las Vegas hotel this morning, sources said -- starting when Adebayo approached Herro about comments the guard made critiquing the center on social media after their seven-year run in Miami ended.
I appreciated how the quadruple-bylined story at The Athletic specified that there was no hesitation on Adebayo's part:
The incident took place at a gym inside the Resorts World Casino in front of an AAU team run by Herro. According to multiple sources who witnessed the incident and who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, Adebayo walked onto the courts and Herro said something to him. Adebayo approached Herro and, without hesitation, punched him. Herro’s AAU coach confronted Adebayo, and Herro yelled at his former teammate while being escorted out by security personnel. Both players left the scene on their own.
At Yahoo Sports, Kelly Iko provided the much-needed perspective of a former Heat player who briefly played for the team almost 20 years ago:
As news broke of an altercation involving Heat starting center Bam Adebayo and former teammate Tyler Herro — a tremor so abrupt that a number of Miami coaches were seen glued to their phones Friday during the Heat's 119-86 win over the Bucks — retired player James Posey was still processing the information at Cox Pavilion.
[...]
Yahoo Sports learned that both the Heat and Bucks routinely reside at Resorts World during Summer League, and Adebayo shoved Herro in the face before swinging and striking him in the head.
[...]
"As humans, you have feelings," Posey, who played for Miami from 2005-07, told Yahoo Sports.
On Tuesday, ESPN's Ramona Shelburne informed the public that Herro was not knocked down, and was even partaking in "let me at 'em"-coded behavior:
It started when Adebayo approached Herro shortly after 9 a.m. PT Friday. Adebayo and the Heat had come to train on the same court Herro had worked out on earlier in the morning and stayed for a practice with his AAU team.
According to sources with knowledge of the encounter, Adebayo confronted Herro about comments the guard had made, critiquing the center on social media after their seven-year run as teammates in Miami ended when Herro was traded to Milwaukee as part of a blockbuster deal for Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Herro responded verbally in a way that Adebayo took exception to and the encounter became physical. Sources with knowledge of the encounter told ESPN that Adebayo struck Herro near his chin, although descriptions of the nature of the physical contact is in some dispute.
Herro did not get knocked to the ground, according to sources with knowledge of the interaction, who added that he was restrained by others in the gym from responding physically.
All of these reports appear to agree that the altercation was triggered by what Herro had supposedly said on social media in direct messages with a fan, comments that were then leaked to the public. In those messages, Herro suggested that he was in fact the best player on the Heat and questioned whether Adebayo was worth his salary. "I didn't say any names," Herro's alleged account said on Instagram. "I'm just saying should an elite defender be making 60 million a year? Answer that."
Between this incident and Kevin Durant's alleged burner for a group chat in which he roasted his Rockets colleagues, I'm starting to suspect that there's some kind of superstar loneliness epidemic. Why are NBA players DMing random civilians simply to vent about their teammates? Couldn't they instead confide in their friends or perhaps even hire a mental health professional, whose ethics at least forbid them from recording their conversations and circulating them publicly? You don't have to live like this.
Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald offered more detail about the fan whose screencapped conversations with Herro instigated the fight:
A Heat fan who identifies himself as Greg Johnson on X said he publicly posted Herro's private messages criticizing Adebayo, triggering this firestorm, because he was angered that Herro publicly posted Adebayo's poor mid-range field goal percentage.
The fan, who says he's a Toronto, Ontario-based accountant, said Monday: "I feel bad. I didn't want Herro to get punched. To think this led to two players fighting is crazy. If they were close, I feel bad they were not friends anymore. This is crazy to me."
Men will literally DM a Toronto, Ontario-based accountant instead of going to therapy.
