Bam Adebayo nervously asked Roscoe for permission to marry his daughter A’ja Wilson.
Roscoe sweetly gave Bam his blessing, saying he has A’ja’s heart.
Bam and A’ja have been dating for at least 3 years, since the 2021 Olympics.
Real-life Love & Basketball boos Bam Adebayo and A’ja Wilson may be inching closer to “I do” now that the NBA star has revealed he’s already crossed a major milestone in their romance.
Source: Steph Chambers / Getty
During an episode of ESPN’s new docuseriesLife In The W, Adebayo and Wilson shared more intimate details of their relationship than ever before, including the way the former asked for the latter’s hand in marriage.
Bam described the emotional moment as “the most terrifying question,” before adding how much her father, Roscoe’s answer moved him.
“That was the most terrifying question I had to ask him,” Adebayo said. “I was like, ‘Man, would it be cool if like, I married your daughter?’”
Roscoe then sweetly responded,
“I told him, I said, ‘Listen, it seems though that you have A’ja’s heart. If you got A’ja’s heart, you got two more hearts with you to take care.”
The moment ultimately made Bam emotional.
“I’m not gonna lie. I went to the bathroom. I had to cry a little bit.”
Bam added that he has an immense amount of love for the Wilsons, especially Roscoe, who he views as a father figure.
“Roscoe is the dad that I always wanted,” he said. “If I could have picked a dad, it would have 100 percent been Roscoe. One hundred percent.”
And the feeling is reciprocal, with A’ja confirming that,”Bam definitely feels [like] part of the family.”
The timeline of Adebayo and Wilson’s relationship had always been attributed to around 2024, when they first began subtly hinting at their relationship; however, the pair revealed that they’d actually been dating for at least three years before, when they connected during the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Though A’ja never says that Bam has never officially asked her to be his girlfriend, the pair came back to the States after their summer of bringing home medals to a friendship that shortly after turned romantic.
“It was an unsaid thing,” Adebayo explained during the ESPN special. “It was a mutual understanding.”
The two have done a great job of giving the public just enough to still have private moments in their relationship. But fans of one or both of the star athletes need not look farther than courtside at either of their big games to find them supporting one another. From Adebayo’s history-making 83-point performance during the 2025-2026 season to Wilson’s jersey retirement at her alma mater, South Carolina, Bam and A’ja are always making time to be one another’s biggest fans.
Most recently, Bam was out and about at the WNBA All-Star game playing sideline photographer for A’ja and her Team Spoon teammates who reigned victorious, beating Team Coop 129-122. Still, fans need not concern themselves with wedding bells just yet, as Wilson did say Adebayo hasn’t officially popped the question to her.
“I would love to be his wife,” Wilson said with a smile. “My ring finger is a little empty, if you know what I’m talking about.”
Well, she may not have a wedding ring on her left hand, but she and her Las Vegas Aces are still in the running to add to her championship trophy case as the WNBA season continues on Jul. 28.
