Emoni Bates Drafted No. 49 Overall by Cavaliers | 2023 NBA Draft | Eastern Michigan Highlights

3 comments

1. I mean he looks nice here and he’s always been the type of player to look good on a highlight reel but even here you can tell he takes some brain dead shots.

2. Great ceiling, hope he stays together mentally, and figures out how to play a bit of defense.

3. Usually I try to give teams the benefit of the doubt, since they know more about basketball than me. But man this one really doesn’t make sense to me.

   I’m an Akron fan so I watch a lot of MAC hoops. The MAC has a had a lot of exciting players come through over the years and they almost never make in the NBA, let alone get drafted. Bates’ EMU team won 8 games all last season and he finished the conference 3rd in scoring behind two guys who didn’t get picked last night. In his two games against the Zips they lost by a combined 64 points. In one of those games in Akron he finished with 3 total points and had a meltdown on the bench. I know for a fact that Cavs scouts were in attendance for that performance and still chose to draft him with their only pick? Did they just go off high school potential alone? He seems like the kind of guy who just expects to show up to the gym and drop 40.

   I hope I’m wrong and I guess this is a super low risk move for a team in win-now mode. I just don’t see it working out well for the Cavs unless he commits to being great on and off the court.