What happened to Emoni Bates? Top prospect's transfer should serve as a lesson to us all | Opinion

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Emoni Bates had enough skill at basketball for NBA and college folks to think they were watching the beginning of the next great generational talent.    

He also doesn’t know how to play basketball. Not really.  

Oh, he knew how to get buckets at Ypsilanti Lincoln (Michigan). He knew how to get more buckets in AAU.  

But to play basketball? To exist within something larger than himself?  

He didn’t know how to do that last fall when he started his collegiate career at Memphis, after reclassifying to skip his senior year of high school.  

It wasn’t his fault. 

Nor is it his fault that he committed to Eastern Michigan earlier this week — no offense to EMU — after Louisville and a handful of other programs of that caliber lost interest in the one-time phenom.  

You can blame his father, Elgin, if you want, and the decision to reclassify when he wasn’t physically ready for college ball, and the decision to leave high school for a prep school built around him, and the decision to encourage Bates to shoot almost whenever he wanted, from wherever he wanted, no matter who else was on the team.  

He hasn’t made the best decisions for his son. To which I’d ask: What father has? I haven’t. My father didn’t. His father didn’t. 

Elgin Bates made mistakes. He was also trying to protect his son and his son’s talent and potential in a world that often exploits such talent and potential.  

So if you blame the father, then blame the scouts and coaches who watched him and sent superlatives his way when he was barely 15, and blame us, the media, for taking those superlatives, watching a few of his games, and jumping onto the hype rocket. 

Blame the millions of dollars at stake — maybe hundreds of millions of dollars — and blame a society that allows kids to be treated like adults.  

Call Bates a cautionary tale if you want. I’m not yet. I’m also not here to judge clichés.  

Bates’ story is not done. The former five-star recruit is 18,  and while age isn’t always an excuse when projections go awry, it matters in Bates’ case. Though age isn’t the only thing that matters. 

When we learned this week that Bates would have a homecoming of sorts, playing his college ball for the Mid-American Conference school in Ypsilanti, lots of questions were asked, starting with this: 

What? 

And this: 

How in the … ?  

Two months ago, he was talking to Louisville. Eight months ago, he was playing for Memphis, alongside Jalen Duren, the Detroit Pistons’ new lottery pick. Eighteen months ago, he had committed to Michigan State to play for Tom Izzo, after spending many evenings in East Lansing the previous year, hanging out in the Spartans locker room chatting up the guys. 

Bates was 16 then, not too far removed from the cover of Sports Illustrated and a lengthy piece about his potential and potential journey. Bates earned that cover because of his skill and the praise that followed that skill. 

A college assistant coach is quoted in the piece as saying Bates was the best player (for his age) that he’d ever seen. I heard similar statements from college coaches, too, and wrote a couple of columns about his potential with those voices in my head.  

His play — and hype — packed gyms around southeastern Michigan when he played at Lincoln as a freshman. His team won the state title. As a sophomore, the school played its games at EMU to accommodate the crowds. 

He was a prodigy and drew comparisons to Kevin Durant.

And then he wasn’t.   

And so, people ask questions. They want to know what happened. They want someone to blame. 

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Again, Elgin Bates is the easiest target. It’s easy to say he interfered too much. That he wanted too much control. And he did.   

Yet plenty of parents get in the way of their children, especially when future earnings are in play. This often doesn’t matter if the talent shines.  

Bates' talent has yet to shine at this level. That’s why he isn’t still at Memphis. That’s why he is no longer projected to be a lottery pick next year. If he’d balled, the other noise wouldn’t matter.  

But he didn’t ball. 

So the noise grew louder about how he’d been groomed, and the AAU team built around him, and his father, and all of a sudden one of the most hyped recruits since LeBron James is playing at a school not exactly known for its basketball program.  

Bates is still talented. He is still 6 feet 8. He can still shoot. 

Still, he needs more strength. More bounce. Most of all, more of a sense of when to shoot and when to pass and where to go on a basketball court at the collegiate level.  

In other words, he needs to learn how to play basketball. He needs seasoning. Hopefully, for his sake, he will find these at EMU.  

If he does, he’ll be given a chance in the NBA. Because in the end, the talent is still what matters.  

Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @shawnwindsor.