Who thunk biggest Vegas league stories would be Emoni Bates & Colin Castleton
2nd round pick Bates and undrafted Castleton are the top performers from either team's draft picks and recent press in Cleveland and L.A. already are putting them in the two-deep of their teams (Castleton as part of Pelinka moving Anthony Davis to PF).
Wasn't Bates Cleveland's only draft pick? Either way, I'm happy to see him doing well.
Yep only pick in the draft due to various trades over the years. The 2023 first round pick was traded to Indiana as part of the Caris Levert deal.
Think the Emoni Bates pick was a really nice upside decision. He'll need time to shake off bad habits and learn his role in an offense with two very ball dominant guards in Garland and Mitchell, but the raw ability is there. Hard to find that type of scorer in the second round.
Lord, if Bates can get out of off the court drama and get a good supporting group, he has all the potential to be a star. I loved his game coming out of high school. I really hope the kid can turn it around.
Wait, so Castleton isn't finishing his rookie contract this year? He's just finally getting to the league? He only played college basketball for 5 seasons, but it sure seems longer than that. Wishing him all the success.
Having watched most of the three Pistons games I am definitely under the impression that Summer League is hot garbage and any conclusions drawn are of very limited use, though I'm going to go ahead and say that we're going to like Ausar Thompson, he does all the little things.
I'm not surprised that Castleton is performing well -- by spending as much time in college as he did he is older, more developed physically and has had more coaching. Doesn't mean he's going to be anything more than a deep bench piece this year, but if he sticks great for him.
Haven't seen any of Bates, so I dunno there.
Amen on Auser Thompson!
(i'll see myself out)
Is it possible that watching the Pistons play three games might have biased your perception of summer league play?
Juwan was courtside for the Pistons game, presumably because Jett was playing in the game after. Jett actually had a pretty good game, led the team with 22 pts and 4/8 from 3.
Summer League is useless, but Ausar Thompson's performance therein proves that he's the real deal.
Summer league stats mean nothing. We are in the darkest days of sports coverage so people will oversell anything but it’s all meaningless
Castleton had a ton of potential and was sorry to see him go, but he was somewhat soft here and apparently has grown physically.
'Soft' is too easy an adjective to apply to an earnest 17-18 year old who's still just working to gather his limbs and deploy them. I often find that word, applied to young men by us old men, pretty messy.
I dont think he was soft at all. He played very physical for his build. I thought he had amazing skill for his young years and could shoot and run the floor. It sucked to see him go.
I mean, he was an example of the classic big man rule, they continue to develop year over year so what you see as a freshman can be very different from what you get as a senior. Dickinson is the outlier where his freshman performance was pretty much 80-90% of his potential and there was only very incremental improvement in certain areas after that.
dickensen was also almost 20 when he got here, which is why he might be an outlier.
Yeah, good point. He was much closer to a finished product already.
username checks out
I think the dead period for sports makes the hot takes are coming in fast from summer league. I'll believe it when I see it in the fall.
OP, where are the links? Not that I don't trust you, but (semi-random collection here) .....
https://kingjamesgospel.com/2023/07/13/3-things-emoni-bates-shown-cavs-summer-league-squad/
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https://clutchpoints.com/lakers-nba-summer-league-dmoi-hodge-colin-castleton-hornets
Cavs fan here on Bates. First game was rough but he's steadily improved each game since. He can shoot, and the one thing the Cavs dearly lacked last year (besides a set of balls against the Knicks in round one) was shooters. And it seemed that he was able to create his own shot off the dribble and had a really nice stroke on catch and shoots so there's that.
And he actually made a few nice defensive plays and got the ball out quickly in transition. As stated above, the NBA summer league is ALL shooting and no D so huge caveats apply but......he looked like the player we all thought he was going to be way back when he was in high school. At least for a handful of games in July.
Emoni was always going to translate better to the NBA and college. I don't think he is an actual piece to a team but he is an NBA talent. The floor spacing is much better in the NBA and if there is one thing he can do is ISO. He is 6'9 with handles and range. There is a place in the NBA for him but like I said, I don't see him being the piece to a team to make a difference.
His shooting stats don’t actually suggest he can consistently shoot
Shane Halter caveat applies.
i'm totally rooting for emoni bates. the kid has been really poorly-served by the people around him.
Agreed. I hoped the Pistons would've been able to snag him in the 2nd round or as an UDFA, but I think he needs some distance between himself and home. Part of me wonders if he would've been better off with the G-League Ignite and going up against grown men.
That would have hurt him more. Remember—he reclassified and started his college career early. He would have been pulverized against grown-ass men.
Good on both of them for showing a bit in summer league, hoping they both have success. It will be interesting to see how far Emoni's Tyrannosaurus arms can take him (I legit cannot un-see that visual after his measurements came out, not too many NBA players with a negative wingspan).
https://therookiewire.usatoday.com/2021/10/06/emoni-bates-memphis-pro-day-measurements/
So much for the basketball expertise of a helluva lotta Michigan fans. The hubris with which some people assert their superior knowledge--despite getting their opinionated butts handed to them over and over and over--never ceases to amaze.
Don't be so critical. Part of the fun of being a sports fan is acting like you know everything.
I'm not critical of being critical, I'm critical of the cruel edge with which people diss these kids. . . only to be proved. . . not very insightful.
It's the summer league, dude.
Amen brother.
Nothing, and I mean NOTHING pisses me off more than when we're discussing a couple of pleasant surprises in the NBA summer league with Michigan ties than having to deal with cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-assed, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed, sack of monkey shit that you assholes all are.
I resemble that remark!
Not sure what it is that makes certain NBA fans think they need to be an epic douchebag. Twitter is full of them.
I find it much more amazing that you came to tell a bunch of people how wrong they are with no discernible opinion of your own or any explanation of what you’re talking about.
That's cool and all, but I don't put a lot of stock in summer league. Most of every roster are full of guys who the closest they'll get to the league is summer league.
Remember, Glen Rice Jr was an MVP of the Las Vegas summer league and played a total of 16 games across 2 years in the NBA.
Colin Castleton has been a pleasant surprise, but I think still needs to work on his strength - against NBA-level size he will get bullied a lot and if I had to pick a more pro-ready player from our Summer League squad it'd be Max Christie (who alas played for MSU) That said, Colin himself has a decent change to make the roster for depth down the line since we really really really need any kind of back-up center for Anthony Davis - though at this point you really want Colin to be the back-up to the actual back-up.
Celtics looked a little better though, eh? ;)
Seriously I think Christie is going to make the 2nd year leap. He looks like a guy whose body is finally NBA ready, and wouldnt be surprised if he has a long productive NBA career.
I'm just loving my guy on the Celtics, Jordan Walsh. He single-handedly brought them back in that game. Talk about a charlie hustle guy with length & skill, love his game. And he played with Tarris at Link Academy, so hopefully seeing your former teammates succeed rubs off on the big guy this year.
Castleton was always a guy I thought we could have used next to Hunter. Athletic, quick up and down the court, blocks, good finisher. I know he wasnt there when he left, but he turned out a lot better than Brandon Johns.
I hope both get their footing in the NBA. I'm dubious that Bates winds up being a consistent performer in the NBA because he's just a really bad defensive player and a limited athlete but you never know. Getting humbled by the NBA draft and getting good coaching for once certainly won't hurt.
Bates seemed bored with basketball ,after high school . Maybe someone kicked him in the butt ! i can see him being a
Yes, go on...
Not Jabari Smith Jr. averaging 35 pts?
Or Victor Wembanyama shutting it down after one game.?
Or Ausar Thompson's insane defense statline?
Emoni Bates???