With the 49th pick of the 2023 NBA draft, the Cleveland Cavaliers selected Emoni Bates.
Once considered the number one overall prospect in his class, and getting comparisons to players such as Kevin Durant and Lebron James, Bates had both school-related complications and off-court issues that saw a drop in his play and media coverage. A kid who went from being on the cover of Sports Illustrated to ranking below 50 on draft boards. Did Cleveland waste a pick or steal a superstar?
A Tale of Two Colleges
Bates spent one year at the University of Memphis before transferring to Eastern Michigan University, and produced very different performances for each. At Memphis he averaged 9.7 points per game at a 38.6 percent clip in eighteen games, playing twenty three and a half minutes. A little underwhelming for someone who played so dominantly at the last level, but he entered the league as the youngest player in the NCAA at 17 after graduating a year early. He was quite literally a child amongst men.
The next year at Eastern Michigan he was given more playing time (an average of ten minutes more per game) over thirty games and posted an improved 19.2 points per game while shooting 40.5 percent from the field. He also improved his rebounds per game (5.8 compared to 3.3) and managed to drop four double-doubles (compared to zero at Memphis).
Oddly, in his time at Michigan, he performed much better on the road than he did on his home court. Averaging 20.4 points and shooting 43 percent on the road while only putting up 17.7 points going 36.9 percent from the floor at home (not to mention his three point percentage was over 10 points higher on the road at 37.2 percent).
Looking ahead
Despite the lack of attention from the media the past couple years, Bates has put a massive amount of potential on display. As a skilled volume shooter with range extending almost to half court, he has the chance to bring both scoring and some spark to this Cavs team off the bench. And once he adds some weight (listed as 6-foot-10, 170 pounds) it’s likely that his aggressive play style, and his refusal to shy away from the rim, will garner more results.
The most glaring area of his game needing improvement is his defense, but with a 6-foot-9 wingspan and J.B. Bickerstaff’s penchant for solid defense he’s in just about the best position possible to work on that.
Cleveland Charge fans will most likely get to see more of him than Cleveland Cavaliers fans will, but this current team (excluding Donovan Mitchell and Jarret Allen) is filled with home-grown talent. Isaac Okoro, Darius Garland and Evan Mobley are all examples of how Bates’s trajectory could potentially play out.
He could be a role player who brings value off the bench with the ability to start (Okoro), he could develop into an all star over the next couple years (Garland) or he could bust out the gates as one of the premier faces of this team (Mobley).
Worst case scenario: he fizzles out and is not able to effectively contribute to this team. Best case scenario: The lineup of Garland, Mitchell, Mobley and Allen will add another all-star caliber player to their already accolade-riddled starting lineup.
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Featured photo courtesy of NBA.com
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