I Promise We Don't Have To Do This

Can't Emoni Bates just...exist?

Through two Summer League games, Emoni Bates has been relatively innocuous. He’s shot a paltry 10-30 from the field, including just 27% from beyond the arc. He’s rebounded surprisingly well but hasn’t passed much. His shot selection has ranged from “Ok, it didn’t go in but keep shooting” to “even Dion Waiters wouldn’t have pulled from there.” He’s athletic as all hell, soaring to snare a gorgeous pass from Sharife Cooper to finish an alley-oop and swatting a couple shots on the defensive end.

Though he’s got more name recognition, Bates resembles the typical Summer League player that fills out the fat of these rosters. He’s a late round draft pick on a two-way contract trying to prove his worth to a team already in playoff contention. There’s nothing overtly interesting or unique about that, but because of his former life as a highly-touted prospect, the discourse around him has inevitably become exhausting.

As you surely know by now, Bates was once the no. 1 ranked high school prospect in the country for the class of 2022 before he reclassified and carried a no. 3 ranking into the class of 2021. He arrived at Memphis to play for Penny Hardaway at the age of 17, struggled mightily, then transferred back home to play his sophomore season for a bad Eastern Michigan team. Amidst rumors that the Cavs were looking to trade into the first round of the 2023 NBA Draft, they instead decided to stay put and snag Bates in the second round with the 49th pick.

None of this, frankly, is all that interesting. The Cavs remain desperate for playmaking wings, and Bates is the idea of that. Best case scenario, Bates transforms who he is as a player in the G League and at some point becomes a productive, if small, part of the Cavs rotation. Worst case scenario, he flames out almost immediately. Either outcome feels largely inconsequential, which is why the conversation about Bates is so odd.

Depending on who you follow on Twitter or the writers you choose to read, Bates is either not worth spending energy on or is about to shock the league and shush the haters. He’s either a referendum on the Cavs late-round drafting philosophy or a low-risk bonus pick. He’s either already garbage after two games of disorganized basketball or has shown flashes of what he’ll become with less pressure and a real coaching staff. What is he isn’t, apparently, is just another insanely young basketball player searching out his footing, an amorphous blob of a hooper who hasn’t really had a chance to decide for himself what kind of player he wants to be.

The Cavs have the shadow of a consequential season looming over of them. After a disappointing (and somewhat embarrassing) flameout in the first round of the playoffs, there’s an organizational leap that needs to be made. Evan Mobley needs to become a terror. Donovan Mitchell’s future needs to be figured out. So does Jarrett Allen’s. Max Strus and Georges Niang need to be seamlessly integrated in the rotation, and Isaac Okoro needs to shoot more than two 3’s a game.

With all that going on in the penthouse, what Emoni Bates is doing at the ground floor shouldn’t be so exhaustingly polarizing. He deserves space, at just 19 years old, to start a journey that may or may not end with him at the end of the Cavs bench. And whatever happens honestly doesn’t matter that much at all.