Ranking the 5 riskiest boom-or-bust prospects in the 2023 NBA draft

Risky Boom-or-Bust Prospect #5: Emoni Bates, Eastern Michigan

To put it lightly, a lot has happened to Emoni Bates since he started his college career. He decommitted from Michigan State, reclassified to play at Memphis with Jalen Duren, struggled and lost a lot of time to injury, then transferred to Eastern Michigan to play in his hometown. That whirlwind tour of the college basketball scene has put his game under the microscope more than ever before.

For as much goes on behind the scenes, the basketball itself is the real reason that Bates is a boom-or-bust prospect. On one hand, Bates looked more like the star scorer that he was at the high school level, shredding teams in and out of conference play with slick turn-around jumpers and pull-ups from beyond the arc:

On the other hand, Bates’s efficiency was still poor from all parts of the field and he barely contributed anything else on offense. He was also a poor defender who couldn’t stay in front of players in a lower conference, which raises some major red flags in his game at the next level.

Basically, the crux of Bates’s career arc comes down to what it’s always come down to for him: whether or not he can score. If he can hit shots at a reasonable clip in the NBA, there will at least be a bench role for him there. If he can’t be anything other than an inefficient shot-chucker, Bates could see himself out of the NBA in less than a year or two.