Trading Bam Adebayo after four games would be the real overreaction

Bam Adebayo said it himself: "You know, it's funny how the outside noise wants to make me the scapegoat." He is right, and the proof is how fast a four-game sample turned into a trade idea.

The Heat are 0-4 after a 113-109 home loss to Dallas. Adebayo has played badly. He averages 11.8 points, and he is making 61.5% of his free throws. Nobody should pretend otherwise, and Adebayo does not need anyone to. But the team's problems are bigger than one player's cold shooting.

The team numbers point elsewhere

Start with the shape of the roster. Miami ranks 27th in offensive rating at 105.7. That is a team that cannot generate good shots, and a center who is not the primary scorer cannot fix that alone. The Heat also rank 24th in defensive rating at 118.8, which is bad but not the collapse you would expect if the defensive anchor were the problem.

The strongest argument against Adebayo is the pairing number. In 71 minutes with Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Heat have a 101.3 offensive rating, a 132.9 defensive rating and a net rating of -31.6. That looks damning until you look at the sample. It is a little more than a game and a half of floor time, spread across four losses. It tells you the two have not figured out how to share the floor yet. It does not tell you which of them is the issue, and it certainly does not tell you to remove one.

The trade idea is a headline, not a plan

Bleacher Report floated a deal that would send Adebayo and Tim Hardaway Jr. to the Knicks for Karl-Anthony Towns. It is a trade idea, not a report of talks, and it reads like one. It treats a slow start as a verdict on a player who has spent years as the best defender and connector on this roster.

Think about what the Heat would be selling. Adebayo is the one player on the team who guards several positions, switches onto guards and still handles the ball at the elbow. Towns is a gifted scorer. He is not the same kind of defender, and a team ranked 24th on that end does not get better by swapping its anchor for a bigger offensive threat. Miami would be paying to fix the weaker side of the ledger by damaging the stronger one.

What patience looks like

Adebayo's own shooting should come back toward his history. Free throws at that rate are noise for a player who has made them at a far better clip. The Heat should spend the next few weeks on the harder questions: who creates shots when Giannis sits, how the lineups around the two stars are built, and why the offense is so far down the league table.

Pat Riley's front office has never been shy about big swings, and nobody should blame fans for wanting one. A four-game panic is the wrong time to take it. Miami can trade Adebayo in December, in February or next summer, and his value will be the same or higher if he plays like himself. If the Heat trade him now, they sell low on the player they can least afford to lose, and they learn nothing about the roster they built around him.

Adebayo called himself the scapegoat. The numbers say the Heat have plenty of other places to look first.