A path to redemption: How Emoni Bates can help the Cleveland Cavaliers

The draft stock of Emoni Bates bottomed out over the past two years. But the No. 49 pick in the NBA Draft could really help the Cleveland Cavaliers.

When you are anointed as the best high school prospect on the planet as just a sophomore, it is almost guaranteed that you will one day hear your name called on draft night. And on Thursday, that is exactly what happened to 19-year-old Emoni Bates.

But back when he was being compared to the second coming of Kevin Durant, he probably didn’t expect that his name wouldn’t be called until the back half of the second round. But unfortunately, that nightmare became a reality for Bates yesterday.

Still, Bates has what he’s always dreamed of — a chance to play basketball at the highest level. And he’s getting that opportunity on a Cleveland Cavaliers team that is fresh off a 51-win season and is returning their four best players (all of which are 26 or younger, and none of whom play the same position as Bates). Some would argue that this is as good of a chance as you can get if you’re Bates.

So, what can Bates realistically contribute to this Cleveland team? What flaws will he have to learn to overcome? And can the man once lauded as a prodigy find a way to make a name for himself in the NBA?

How can Emoni Bates help the Cleveland Cavaliers?

In theory, Bates solves a massive problem for Cleveland.

Despite earning the fourth-seed and home-court advantage in the first round, the Cavaliers fell in five games to the New York Knicks. And this was in large part due to their lack of shooting/spacing.

As a team, the Cavaliers shot just 32.7 percent from 3 in the first round (12th of the 16 playoff teams), and their inability to shoot allowed the Knicks to help off of off-ball players to pack the paint. And because of this, Cleveland was relegated to the lowest offensive rating of any team that qualified for the postseason (101.9).

On the surface, it wouldn’t appear that Bates — a 33 percent 3-point shooter last season – could do much to remedy this ailment. However, his raw 3-point conversion rate is sorely lacking in context.

Bates’ Eastern Michigan Eagles were a dreaded offensive team. According to Ken Pom, their Adjusted Offensive Efficiency of 101.4 ranked 252nd in the nation (out of 358 Division I teams). As a result, Bates was often overtasked as the team’s primary option. He launched 7.7 3s per game (99th percentile), and most of those shots were of the self-generated variety (unassisted shots are generally more difficult than assisted shots).

A more holistic way to view Bates’ shooting from last year is through the lens of Cerebro Sports’ 3-Point Efficiency metric (3PE). According to the website, 3PE is “a shooting metric that combines 3PT volume and efficiency to show the most lethal shooters.” And based on this measure, Bates sits in the 94th percentile in Division I hoops from this past season.

The tape adds another layer to his shooting prowess. Last season, he played the part of the Mid-American Conference’s (MAC) Stephen Curry, commanding a level of off-ball gravity that created open looks for his teammates.

In the clip above, we see Bates’ teammate at Eastern, Noah Farrakhan, streaking down the court in transition. Bates’ defender (located on the ‘strong side’ of the court) should help on the drive to derail Farrakhan’s foray to the rim. But instead, he stays glued to Bates because he’s so worried about leaving him open. Bates doesn’t get credit with the assist here, but he’s the one responsible for creating this shot.

Bates also showed the ability to counter aggressive overplays from the defense (i.e., face-guarding) by back-cutting overzealous defenders.

Bates likely won’t command that level of attention at the NBA level, but at the very, least this demonstrates his ability to function as a spacer/shooter.

There is also room to believe that he could have some utility as a movement marksman at the NBA level. Due to their youth and lack of continuity (316th in Division I experience in the nation), Eastern Michigan rarely incorporated too many motion-heavy offensive sets. However, in the rare instances we did get to see Bates in those situations (coming off screens and handoffs), he showed some nice flashes. If he’s willing to accept the role, he could develop into a useful spacer/movement-shooter for the Cavaliers.

Learning to use his bucket-getting powers for good.

We say “if” he’s willing to accept a lesser offensive load because Bates really hasn’t seemed to embrace that role in the past. There’s a reason he garnered comparisons to Durant at such a young age. Bates is the old-school bucket-getter that certain segments of the hoop collective yearn for. The type of dude that puts together incredible highlight mixtapes.

The problem with that is to succeed in today’s hyper-efficient game as a bucket-getter, you need to be a 99th-percentile bucket-getter (like Durant). Bates is up there in the pecking order, but he’s not at that 99th percentile level. Hence his true shooting percentage of 52.8 percent last season (35th percentile in the MAC).

However, that doesn’t mean all his years of off-the-dribble scoring are for nothing. As we’ve discussed before, in today’s game, you can’t just be a shooter. You need to be able to put the ball on the floor and attack when defenses try to run you off the line. If Bates can learn to harness that bucket-getting and channel that skill into his closeout attacking, he can help the Cavaliers’ offense extend/capitalize on advantages in a way that many of their role players couldn’t last season.

So what about his Emoni Bates’ defense?

To put it kindly, Bates’ defense at Eastern Michigan was unimpressive. At just 190 pounds, Bates was often bullied by bigger guys on the interior. On top of that, his gangly frame stiffened his defensive stance (which led to blowbys at the point-of-attack), he failed to consistently box out, and he had a handful of lapses in off-ball awareness (missing a rotation once because he was quite literally scratching his nose).

With that said, he is still a long dude, which goes a long way when you’re talking about defense. At the NBA Draft Combine, he measured in at a 6-foot-9 wingspan (per NBA.com). That isn’t great when you’re talking about someone who is 6-foot-8 without shoes. But it’s still way better than being 6-foot-0.5 with a 6-foot-3 wingspan (Trae Young’s measurements at the combine in 2018).

When it comes to defense, length always gives you some margin for error. Bates probably won’t ever be a positive defender. But if he can buy in on that end of the floor, he should be serviceable enough to not get played off the court. And if he can provide the shooting/spacing we talked about earlier, that’s all this Cleveland team really needs because Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen can clean up any of his deficiencies on the backline.

To tie in the context component here, Bates will be going from one of the worst defensive infrastructures in college basketball (341st in Adjusted Defensive Efficiency) to the best NBA defense in the league last season (Cavaliers were 1st in Defensive Rating). And we’ve seen before that you can turn a bad defender into a below-average/average one if you put them in a competitive environment with good defensive personnel.

At the end of the day, with the 49th overall pick, this selection represents a flyer from the Cavaliers. They aren’t banking on Bates turning into anything special for them. Hell, they aren’t even banking on him being on the roster to start the season. That’s how much the expectations for Bates have changed over the years.

But if he can buckle down into his new role and ramp up his effort on defense, there’s a chance that Bates not only sticks in the league but turns into the missing ingredient this Cleveland offense so desperately needed last postseason. And if that happens, I’d say that would make for a pretty nice redemption arc in the story of Emoni Bates.

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