(Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)
The Cleveland Cavaliers made the ultimate low-risk/high-reward pickup.
They used their second-round pick to land Emoni Bates, who was once considered a top-three prospect in his class.
Bates was quite impressive during the NBA 2K Summer League in Las Vegas, and the Cavs even won the title.
That’s why he took the liberty to take a page out of LeBron James’ book, hilariously tweeting the same thing James said when he won a championship with his hometown team in 2016.
Per SportsCenter, Bates also promised that this was only the beginning of his journey with the Cavs.
Emoni Bates pulled a Bron after winning the summer league title with Cleveland pic.twitter.com/zyE9SRLAow
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) July 18, 2023
Notably, Bates’ shot-making skills have never been put in doubt, and he fits the Cavs’ current timeline.
He went viral and was even famous as a high schooler, being compared to Kevin Durant and considered one of the next big things in the NBA.
Unfortunately, some bad decisions off the court halted his rise to stardom in college, up to the point where he had to transfer from Memphis to Eastern Michigan and fell all the way to the second round.
But Bates is still young, and we’ve seen countless redemption histories and cases when second-round players wind up outplaying their draft stock, and there’s no reason to believe this won’t be the case here.
As long as he keeps the main thing the main thing and he focuses solely on basketball, he could end up being the biggest steal in this draft class, and the Cavs could definitely use another bucket-getter in the wings.
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