Catching Up With Emoni Bates After His Return From Knee Surgery

Bates spoke with The Inside Shot after making his season debut with the Cleveland Charge on Saturday night.

The Cleveland Charge beat the Wisconsin Herd 116-94 at Cleveland Public Hall on Saturday night.

This was the first ever NBA G League game I was in attendance for. Despite the Charge being in Cleveland since 2021, I never made my way to one of their games prior to Saturday night. I decided to go for a few reasons.

First and foremost, I wanted to see a game played at Public Hall. I took a tour for a story for Cleveland Magazine on Tuesday of this week. I thought it was a really cool set up and I wanted to see what it was like to have professional basketball games in the same venue that has hosted some pretty historic musical acts such as Elvis Presley and The Doors.

The setup didn’t disappoint. It was really cool to see basketball played there. If you get a chance to go to a Cleveland Charge game, it’s worth your time for the experience alone. I can’t think of many – if any – venues in professional basketball in the United States that are as cool as that one.

Secondly, heading to a Charge game serves as an opportunity to see young members of the Cavs play. It’s a chance to watch guys like Jaylon Tyson and Craig Porter Jr. see more minutes than the Cavs can give them right now. Those two in particular might be pretty important for the Cavs over the next few years.

Neither of them had standout games for the Charge on Saturday, but Tyson continues to impress me by seemingly always making the right play when he’s on the court. Whether it’s with the Cavs or with the Charge, he has a great feel for the game in a way that I’m not sure can be coached into a guy. It’s sort of a, ‘you either have it or you don’t’ sort of thing and he definitely has it.

And finally, I received a tip that Cavs two-way forward Emoni Bates was going to make his season debut in this game.

Against Wisconsin, Bates scored 10 points in 24 minutes off the bench in his first action this year. He missed the first couple of months of the season after having surgery on his right knee on Oct. 7.

Bates is in his second season as a professional after being selected by the Cavs with the 49th overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft. There aren’t many players that have his natural ability in the G League. The upside with him is still clear, even if he hasn’t figured everything out yet.

The past couple of months have served as an opportunity for Bates to grow as a basketball player and a person while he rehabbed his knee.

“Just taking everything day by day. Patience, learning everything up here, down with the Charge,” Bates told The Inside Shot. “Just watching a lot of basketball, just rehabbing and taking it day by day.”