Is The Next Great One On The Way In Michigan?

One of the great things in basketball is the anticipation of a truly great player who is about to arrive.

In the past we’ve seen it with guys like Wilt Chamberlain, Lew Alcindor, later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and most recently Lebron James.

Everyone understood James was going to be great and he was. He lived up to every expectation.

Some don’t of course. Lenny Cooke bombed. He was supposed to be even better than LeBron. And of course there was Sweetpea, aka Lloyd Daniels.

Still, when someone lives up to it it’s an amazing ride (we didn’t put Zion Williamson in this list because there were still a lot of question marks coming out of high school).

The latest guy to be discussed in these terms?

Emoni Bates.

A 6-9 kid out of Ypsilanti and just 15, Yahoo’s Pat Forde describes him as “looking like a young Kevin Durant/Penny Hardaway hybrid.”

Even King James is impressed.

No one could have anticipated emojis and autocorrect fifteen years ago. You’ll know he’s truly made it if Emoni isn’t autocorrected in a few years.