Page 48 - Sports Illustrated KIDS Magazine (January - February 2020)
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6.2 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game at St. Vincent–St. Mary from the inside out: post moves first, followed by midrange
in Akron, Ohio. Emoni vowed to do better. Then he averaged shots, then attempts from farther if they could handle it.
28.6 points, 10.1 rebounds and 1.9 assists. Bates learned from the outside in.
Those numbers don’t mean he is better than LeBron. But When he was in second grade, he was a head taller than
the story tells you something about the kid. He has studied his classmates, and he was already draining threes. He was
the King James Bible but does not take it as gospel. He has crossing opponents over at eight. Coaches talk about position-
talked to James. He has connected with Durant on Instagram. less basketball; Bates has never had a position. He dribbles, he
He says getting to know the biggest basketball stars in the passes, he scores from anywhere on the floor. He always has.
world feels “normal.”
THESE SUPERSTAR sto-
p
BASKETBALL WAS INVENTED t hird eriod ries are all novels, aren’t
p
se c ond eriod in the U.S., and most of the best they? Kid gets left off the
players in history were born here, Literature varsity at Laney High in
Spanish but the modern game was shaped Wilmington, N.C., uses it
by two weeks in Spain. as fuel, becomes the most famous athlete in the world.
The host country’s team did not make the medal round. Man-child from Philly towers over every body, gets tabbed
They lost 122–81 to the Americans. They also lost to Angola. the Stilt and the Big Dipper, and scores 100 points in a
But when the U.S. team sprinkled its genius on those Olym- single NBA game, but is remembered largely for the times
pics, the rest of the world watched, learned and vowed to he lost. Boy grows up in Akron, Ohio, never knows his dad,
catch up. Nobody soaked up the lessons faster than Spain, gets drafted by his hometown team, leaves it, then returns
which is now the reigning world champion. to end the city’s championship drought.
What does this teach us about Emoni Bates? Take notes, The Emoni Bates story may read like a novel someday.
kids: There was a widely held belief in 1992 that if Europeans Right now, it feels like a comic book. He is Spider-Man:
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED •
wanted to make the NBA, they would have to adjust to a more Something bit him at a young age, stretched his limbs and
physical game. What happened was the opposite: Americans turned him into an angry, supernatural hoops phenomenon.
adopted the European style. Traditional back-to-the-basket There were early signs he was not like the rest of us. When
centers are an endangered species. Even the tallest players he was four, his mother, Edith, worried she would lose him
NOVEMBER 4, 2019
are supposed to have three-point range. in the wave pool at Rolling Hills County Park, but Emoni
Emoni Bates is unlike previous stars because he grew up instinctively understood how to get his head back above
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in this era. For a hundred years, tall players learned the game water while avoiding the inner tubes. He had never taken
