There’s no real offseason for the high school hoops elite.
Summer ball began in earnest over the past month with the first two sessions of the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League. Stars from the most recent Culligan City of Palms Classic were well-represented, and none has shone more brilliantly than reigning City of Palms MVP Sharife Cooper, who’s playing on the AOT Running Rebels with several of his teammates from City of Palms champ McEachern (Powder Springs, Georgia).
Cooper is the league’s third-leading scorer, at 28.1 points per game, and he’s second in assists per game with 8.2. Cameron Thomas, from City of Palms participant Oak Hill Academy (Mouth of Wilson, Virginia), is right behind Cooper in scoring, at 27.5 a game for the Boo Williams team.
At No. 5 in assists with 6.6 per game is Scottie Barnes, the Culligan City of Palms MVP from 2017. Barnes showed off an all-around game to an audience that included Kentucky coach John Calipari on April 27, when Barnes had 10 points, nine rebounds and eight assists for the Nightrydas Elite squad, which ran UPLAY Canada out of the gym in a 100-55 blowout victory.
The loudest buzz coming out of the EYBL thus far hasn’t been from the top-level 17-and-under league but from the lower age groups, where 15-year-old 6-foot-9 sensation Emoni Bates dazzled with 43 points in front of LeBron James, who was there to watch his 14-year-old son, Bronny.
Bates, a rising sophomore at Lincoln High (Ypsilanti, Michigan), is already No. 1 on the ESPN Class of 2022 rankings, and with 2022 poised to be the year that high school seniors again become eligible for the NBA draft, it might not be long until he’s a household name.
Others making waves include Moussa Cisse, a 6-foot-10 rebounding machine from Christ the King (Queens, New York) and 6-foot-6 Montverde Academy point guard Cade Cunningham, who is currently 10th in scoring for the age 17-and-under circuit at 23.2 points per game.
Two more EYBL sessions are left — one in Dallas over Memorial Day weekend, and the Peach Jam in North Augusta, Georgia, from July 10-14.