Once upon a time, Emoni Bates big names in amateur basketballSince then, little has gone according to plan, but that doesn’t mean he can’t play like a future superstar.
Bates, now suitable for Eastern Michigan, showed his potential by recording 29 straight points for the Eagles in the conference game against Toledo on Tuesday. and scored a few dunks.
Bates finished with 43 points on 15-of-23 shooting (9-of-14 from 3-point range) and seven rebounds.
Few MAC games garner interest from the NBA, but at least one celebrity was impressed by Bates’ play. los angeles lakers star lebron jamesWho Admiring Bates since high school.
James isn’t the only NBA star to take notice of Bates. It is also attracting attention from Kevin Durant Ever since I moved from Memphis. Bates was compared to both players at the height of his high school career.
Emoni Bates trying to find new path to NBA
Bates made history in 2020. First Sophomore Named National Gatorade Player of the Yearan award previously won by a peer Jason Tatum, Karl-Anthony Towns, bradley beer And yes, James won twice.
For a while it seemed that Bates could Leading a new generation of prep-to-pro playersbut instead he landed as part of a historically superior recruiting class, reclassified into Penny Hardaway’s Memphis program.
Bates’ career as Tiger hasn’t always been great. At 17, he was the youngest player in basketball in college and had trouble keeping pace with his peers. In an injury-limited freshman year, he averaged 9.7 points per game while shooting about 38.6% from the field. It’s been a bad year for Memphis as a whole, but the Tigers especially went 10-2 in the game without Bates and 12-9 with him.
That season ended with Bates entering the transfer portal and heading to Eastern Michigan in his hometown of Ypsilanti, Michigan.That his tenure began when he got off to a brutal start Arrested on gun charges in Septemberbut he eventually apologized and admitted misdemeanor.
On the court, Bates looked like an Eagles recruit. He averaged a team-best 19.3 points and 5.6 rebounds Tuesday while shooting from 34.4 percent deep. Sure, those numbers go against the downturn in competition, and for a team that went 4-15 into the game, but Tuesday was still a no-brainer for a player once considered the rock of NBA success. It showed that there were a few stars left.
