Page 47 - Sports Illustrated KIDS Magazine (January - February 2020)

FROM THE PAGES OF
HE IS
15
YEARS
OLD.
He slips out of his bi-level house in a Ypsilanti, Michigan,
subdivision in the morning darkness, wearing a hoodie and
holding a fork and a plate of waffles and eggs, just a teenager
who snagged a few extra minutes of sleep. He climbs into
the passenger seat of his father’s Ford Expedition because
he isn’t old enough to drive himself to school yet. It’s an-
other mundane day in the life of a sophomore high school
basketball player, except this one has a goal: “To try to be
the best player—ever.”
Magic, Michael, LeBron . . . Emoni? Well, kids are supposed
to dream. Don’t hold it against him. But one assistant at a
college superpower, when asked about Emoni Bates, says
simply, “He is the best player I’ve ever seen. You have to
see it to believe it.” A college head coach laughs and agrees.
In basketball, every great player evokes memories of an-
other. Emoni is 6' 9" with long arms, minimalist biceps and a
shooting stroke that’s purer than a country sunset, so people
inevitably compare him with Kevin Durant. This sounds
crazy. It is not crazy. An NBA scouting director calls the
Durant analogy “obvious . . . the shooting is remarkable. He
has a chance to be really special.” One coach who recruited
KD calls Emoni “the same level shooter” but “a much better
ballhandler” than Durant at that age.
G
NUMBERS AME
Emoni asked his dad to look up James’s stats as a high school
freshman (18.0 points per game, 6.2 rebounds) and then
vowed to beat them—which he did by averaging 28.6 and 10.1.
E M O N I B AT E S
Ypsilanti, heads turned. By the end of his freshman season
Emoni noticed last year that no matter where he went in
at Lincoln High, the school gym was overflowing for games,
and that was before he hit two buzzer beaters in postseason
games and led the team to the Division I state championship.
Hundreds of fans were sitting on the floor. The hottest ticket
in town had caused a fire hazard. This year, Lincoln will
play at least five games in the 8,800-seat arena at nearby
Eastern Michigan.
It is all too much, too soon but . . . what if it isn’t? What
if he is the rare teenager who knows what he wants and
knows he can handle it? Emoni Bates has a chance to be a
generational player for reasons beyond his skill or athleticism.
Several people in the sport use two words when describing
him: Kobe mentality.
pated in layup lines at a pro-am game; after tip-off, little
Emoni has always had that. When he was five, he partici-
Emoni was mad he wasn’t allowed to play.
He is quiet around strangers, goofy with friends—and an
assassin with a ball in his hands. At one recent workout, his
first after taking two weeks off on his father E.J.’s orders,
he made more threes than he missed, but he was still dis-
appointed. He finished by making at least 30 straight high
school threes. Then he sat down next to a visitor and said
he was sorry he didn’t have a better day.
Put him on any Division I college team, and he could start.
And yet he has only five scholarship offers. Most big schools
aren’t recruiting him because they assume that by 2022,
the NBA collective bargaining agreement will allow high
schoolers to enter the league, and Emoni will leave Lincoln
to be the No. 1 pick.
One NBA front-office rep says that on Emoni’s best day
he could hold his own at an NBA practice right now: “It’s
nuts.” The Durant comparison is “very realistic.” But there
are days when he looks 15 . . . which, of course, he is.
Emoni puts his plate on the floor of the Expedition’s back-
seat, gets out of the car and walks to class.
M A T H H A S A L W A Y S SPORTS ILLUSTRATED •
p
F IRS T eriod been Emoni’s favorite class.
Math He likes it because the subject
come naturally to him, and he
has had great teachers who NOVEMBER 4, 2019
made it fun. Anyway, this can’t be bad. Sports are a
numbers-driven enterprise.
A year ago, before he had played a high school game,
Emoni sat on his couch and asked his father for LeBron 45
James’s stats as a freshman. E.J. looked them up: 18.0 points,