Former NC prep standouts Caleb Martin, Bam Adebayo, Ish Smith to square off in NBA Finals

Three former North Carolina High School basketball standouts will be playing in the NBA Finals starting Thursday night in Denver.

Caleb Martin, who played for Davie County, and Bam Adebayo, who played at Northside and High Point Christian, play for the Eastern Conference Champion Miami Heat, the No. 8 seed.

Smith, who starred at Central Cabarrus, plays for the top-seeded Western Conference Champion Denver Nuggets.

Martin went on a tear during the Eastern Conference Finals in leading the Heat to a 4-3 win against the Boston Celtics, including a 26-point performance in Game 7 that led to plenty of series MVP discussion.

Martin averaged 19.3 points per game against the Celtics, nearly 10 points more than his season average (9.6) this season for the Heat.

Martin played three seasons at Davie County and spent a year playing for national prep power Oak Hill Academy. He spent two seasons playing at N.C. State before transferring to Nevada with his twin brother, Caleb, where they played their final two seasons. He was the Mountain West Conference Player of the Year for the 2017-18 season after averaging 19.5 points per game.

Martin went undrafted in the 2019 NBA Draft before eventually signing with the Charlotte Hornets. He signed with Miami as a free agent in 2021.

Adebayo spent his senior year of high school with High Point Christian and led the team to the NCISAA 3-A state championship game. He averaged 18.9 points, 13 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game his senior year and signed to play with Kentucky.

He was the No. 5 overall recruit in the country as a senior and the No. 2 power forward.

In his lone season with the Wildcats, Adebayo averaged 13 points and eight rebounds per game. He was the 14^th overall pick by the Heat in the 2017 NBA Draft. He is a two-time All-Star (2019-20, 2022-23) and helped lead the Heat to its second appearance in the NBA Finals.

Smith has the distinction as the player who has played for the most NBA teams during his career with 13.

Smith was a star at Central Cabarrus, scoring 1,775 career points and dishing out a school-record 687 assists before graduating in 2006 and heading to Wake Forest, where he enjoyed a successful career as well.

Smith, a reserve point guard for the Nuggets, also went undrafted in the 2010 NBA Draft before signing a free agent contract with the Houston Rockets.

He has also spent time with Memphis, Golden State, Orlando, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia (twice), New Orleans, Detroit, Washington (twice) and Charlotte.