16-year-old basketball marvel Emoni Bates, whose 17th birthday won’t arrive until 2021, is universally regarded by explorers as a transcendent talent.
If you’ve never seen Bates play or are unfamiliar with his file, that main sentence may seem platinum. It is not. Let me assure you that very few humans in the history of the planet have been as good at basketball, at 16.5 years old, as Bates right now.
Admittedly, every No. 1-ranked recruit is thrown into a cycle of inevitable exaggeration annually long before they hit college. “The best since …” It is a common prelude for experts when developing these teens, as if each passing year has to bring more reasons to justify the increased expectation of the previous year, and the year before and the year before.
With Bates, those borders were mostly crossed when he was 15 years old. His talent may justify exaggeration and hyperbole, but it remains to be seen (and I’m talking: we’re going to need at least five years here) whether Bates being mentioned in the same breath as LeBron James is certifiable folly. To be clear, Bates is not the next LeBron; rather, LeBron signifies the beginning of the timeline. The last time a basketball prospect was apparently / automatically as big and identified as such at 16, well, it was when the King left Akron, Ohio.
Bates’ high school season in Michigan was cut short due to the coronavirus, yet he earned the honor of Gatorade Children’s National Player of the Year as a sophomore after averaging 32.3 points, 9.0 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 2.1 robberies. He is the only sophomore to win the award. Even LeBron did not.
On Monday, to the surprise of almost everyone, Bates did Tom Izzo’s offseason and a bit of history. With little prior warning, Bates appeared on ESPN with his family and promised to play in the state of Michigan.
“I am not sure what the future holds, but as I know now, I will commit to Michigan State University,” he said.
That’s a multi-million dollar warning, but still, for the second straight Monday we had a No. 1 prospect in the ranking to announce intentions to play college basketball after Scuttlebutt preceded him, he speculated otherwise.
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Bates is in the class of 2022, which means his promise to the Spartans (if true) is fulfilled more than two years (29 months) before he plays a game at the Breslin Center. Reclassification to 2021 is also an option, in case the Bates family chooses to continue with that.
“That remains to be determined,” Bates’ father Elgin told CBS Sports. “We have no idea right now. We don’t even know if there will be sports in high school next year … I might be in a position to graduate early. You are not going to reclassify to try to reach the 2021 class I do not know what the landscape will be. ”
However, let’s get on with 2022 for now and go back to the little story I mentioned. A cursory analysis of the past commitments of the best candidates yielded no verbal promise before the start of their junior year of high school. Bates’ decision came along with the news that he will be leaving Lincoln High School in Ypsilanti, Michigan, to play at his father’s prep academy (also at Ypsilanti; it is called Ypsi Prep Academy and is affiliated with Aim High Academy, an old high school academy in Michigan), which is a progressive, if not unprecedented movement. We have the father of a world-class talent looking to certify his own satellite academic institution, and in doing so is bringing other five-star talents in and out of Michigan.
High notes
Only seven high school recruits have earned a 1,000 rating for 247Sports since they began evaluating players in 2003.
| Year | Player | college |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Emoni Bates | Committed to the State of Michigan |
| 2021 | Jonathan Kuminga | Undecided |
| 2018 | RJ Barrett | Duke |
| 2013 | Andrew Wiggins | Kansas |
| 2006 | Greg Oden | Ohio State |
| 2004 | Dwight Howard | NBA draft |
| 2003 | Lebron James | NBA draft |
What is also intriguing is how all of this happened. There is no great accumulation. There are no mentions on social media days or weeks in advance of any ad. With less than an hour before Bates put a Spartan hat on his head, only then did most realize what could even going on. The Bates family was determined not to filter any ads or post anything on social media channels for fear of a slim chance of news about this leak.
So here is the best high school player in America, and he’s just bitten into a whole industry engagement trend. Hardly anyone commits to a university before his third year. The best player in America has just beaten most of the 2021 class at the table. Top-rated recruits typically don’t give their casual trainers even 29 weeks, let alone 29 months, to prepare for their arrival. But Bates did it that way because his recruitment is unique. There has never been a recruited player, or, more accurately, not recruited, like him. Never before in the age of history has there been someone so talented who has been so wooed by power and blue blood programs.
“For him, seeing that the least talented boys have 20, 30 offers, and he has four? What are we doing here that is the other way around?” Elgin Bates said. “I mean, I get it. We know he won’t go to college.” If that’s your thought process, then he doesn’t even need to play for you anyway. But does he deserve that 30-second recruiting call? Absolutely. Children are children, children have feelings. That’s the part that put me off. ”
This is the terrain I covered last July, when I was embedded with Bates and his base team, Bates Fundamentals. At the time, when the big inference was that Bates was likely to simply become a high school professional, his father declared “a wrong assumption.” He maintains that posture today.
The state of Michigan never assumed anything. With East Lansing sitting in the shade more than an hour northwest of Ypsilanti, Izzo and his staff have faithfully and patiently recruited Bates and played him all the way.
“Why not go to the state of Michigan?” Elgin Bates said. “No one else has made that maximum effort.”
Everything was worth it on Monday, and it was worth months, if not a year ahead of schedule. Earlier this month, when coaches were finally allowed to call the 2022 prospects, Izzo called at 12:01 am. MSU was the only school to contact Michigan in the late afternoon on June 15, Elgin Bates said.
“How long are you supposed to wait before people join your recruitment?” Bates said. “I don’t want my son to be just a business partner. I want him to be a genuine and caring interest. Come on, at the end of the day, he’s a 16-year-old boy. Why do most high school kids play sports? Next step is what? The next phase is what? University “.
But the speculation about Bates and whether he will ever actually play in college is not fading. It seems pretty unlikely that the NBA will change its minimum age rule before 2022, so the chances of Bates going straight from high school to the NBA are slim. As for the G League, Bates told ESPN.com in an embargoed interview before his announcement that he prefers college basketball to the G League.
“It is good for certain players,” said Bates. “That’s a lot of money. I really don’t plan, I don’t think I will. It’s good for some people, but I don’t think I’m going that route.”
Unless a major factor alters Bates’ situation and allows him to go directly to the NBA, it looks like he’ll play for MSU. That means the Spartans just got the biggest prospect in the show’s history. It means that college basketball could end up having a star as big as Zion Williamson, which is something that seemed almost impossible just a few months ago.
Yes, Bates has that Zion-like ceiling, particularly when it comes to marketing. And when you consider how important and influential the name, image and likeness legislation will be when it is expected to be voted on in January 2021, you get an even clearer picture of why this can and should happen for Bates, MSU, college basketball and the NCAA. He is the ideal player at an upcoming turning point for sports.
“NIL for us, it’s not about social media, it’s not about YouTube followers, it’s not about money,” said Elgin Bates. “It’s about the game. Perfect the craft, focus between the lines and everything else will fit in. We’re not concerned about that right now.”
To be fair, the Bates don’t have to worry about multigenerational wealth coming, it’s just a matter of two or three years to go.
The young man has made an initial decision. The state of Michigan has done its part. Now it’s up to the NCAA to take this opportunity and make sure it doesn’t screw it up. You must not only incorporate NIL legislation, but also commit to bold statutes that allow for real earning potential to lead athletes, so that players in 2023, 2024, and decades come to see fair market value opportunities. College basketball honestly describes someone as a generational talent ready to turn down G League offers in exchange for the college experience.
Emoni Bates is a multi-million dollar gift for college sports. The NCAA would be wise to realize what is at stake and do everything possible to help ensure that the decision it made on Monday does not change in the next 12 to 29 months.
