Tamar Bates Scouting Report
With top-notch shooting being the base, Tamar Bates has the opportunity to grow into a niche role as a complementary guard. With a breakout summer, he's in NBA radars, and here's why:
Tamar Bates (#2, Missouri, #10 at PIT): Senior, 6'5"
Shooting Guard — Born: February 21, 2003 (22 years old)
Introduction
Bates is one of the best touch-based shooters in college basketball. As a fourth-year senior, he continuously adapted and found a niche to impact games at Indiana, where he spent the first two years of his career. Hereafter, Bates moved to the SEC, committing to Coach Gates and the Missouri Tigers, with whom he had a breakout season, scoring over thirteen points per game while leading the conference in free-throw percentage in back-to-back seasons.
Shooting is the most-wanted skill in the NBA. But shooting enough won’t warrant a roster spot. Bates’ game evolved throughout the years, where he fits into a floor-spacing complementary guard. After a stellar performance at the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament and the G League Elite Camp, the buzz continues as Bates earned himself a spot at the NBA Draft Combine. The feasibility of his carving out a role and what his niche skill is forms the emphasis of this scouting report.
Physical Profile
While measured at 6-foot-5 in shoes, Bates has a wiry, long build with a well-filled frame. He’s tough and continued to add muscle while bulking up to 192 pounds. The length is another value for NBA scouts, with a wingspan measured at 6-foot-10. He’s a good athlete with a consistent motor. On top of that, Bates shows good vertical pop while improving his footwork throughout the years.
Bates’ touch around the basket fastly improved compared to his Indiana years. Improving his core strength and balancing out his last step are two main reasons. Bates’ physical tools gave him consistency on the offensive end, whereas he’s still improving positioning in boxouts on defense. Despite being a 22-year-old, NBA teams can continue to tap into the potential of his physical tools in the next few years.
Offense
Catch-and-shoot
While converting 39.7% of his close to four attempts per game, Bates is one of the best shooters in the SEC. His consistency developed via his quick feet, consistent foot placement, and a smooth shooting release. Bates moves toward the ball and barely waits until he gets the pass. Recognizing good positioning to be in the ball handler’s passing angle at all times makes it easier for Bates to find high-quality attempts. His active cutting, on top of positioning himself to bank on his shooting gravity, helps create space around him. It’s feasible that the volume of attempts can increase at the next level.
In the first play below, Bates does well to pivot strongly with his left foot when recognizing dribble penetration. He bent his knees before the pass, which helped him immediately power back up for the shot. He has a high-arcing release on top of his length, which is one of the things NBA scouts seek in guard prospects. In the second play, Bates uses a head-fake and jabs with his left hand to create room while selling the closeout defender the dribble penetration. His range is on display, as the years in the weight room give fruitful returns with Bates seamlessly getting the high-arcing shot up from a standstill.
His M.O. is pivoting strongly. Bates has fluid hips and proper footwork. In the third play, this leads to him pivoting with his left and using his positioning with his right foot to ensure balance on the side step. This adds value as it forces the defense to make a tough decision, as Bates put himself in the position to attack the closeout with that wide-open baseline. That’s the shot quality NBA scouts try to recognize when considering upperclassmen.
Closeouts
Footwork. That’s Bates’ advantage creation tool when he’s creating out of closeouts. Whether it’s him reverse pivoting to optimize his burst or use his craft to create angles when closer to the basket, Bates has the creativity to add gravity to his shooting. Often, shooters are one-dimensional and thus easier to take away. But with Bates, the scoring gravity adds value as teams cannot focus on taking away the three when closing out against him.
That’s where Bates developed a niche role for Missouri. With fewer ball touches, Bates embraced the role of an off-guard who makes reads out of closeouts and slashes rather than a leading ball handler. This helps him to optimize his shot selection and improve the volume of threes off the catch. In the first play below, Bates pivots strongly but is covered well and thus has to settle for the three. Passing out of these sequences is an area of development, as Bates shows improvement while making the most of his touches.
In the second possession, Bates does well to attack the closeout. Hereafter, he puts his consistent floater on display. The touch around the rim and from the line is no coincidence, as the natural release adds more value to his touch. Bates’ efficiency is feasible because of it. In the third play, Bates is seen pivoting strongly with his right foot on the catch, which helped him immediately get a foot in the paint without a dribble. Effective and efficient dribble usage is another part that NBA scouts want to see. His game fits the need of NBA teams to maximize a low-ball-usage role player’s contribution to a team’s offensive rating.
Passing, ball-moving, and playmaking
While averaging an assist per game throughout his collegiate career, Bates’s scoring and shooting-heavy role becomes clear. The negative assist-to-turnover ratio is not an issue because most of his ball touches lead to the aforementioned, with few being passes. The other side of the coin is that Bates enters a motion-based game with a faster pace. That brings the most out of serving as a ball-mover and secondary creator. Therefore, NBA scouts must focus on the level of angle-creation for others and how often Bates executes his passing reads.
Bates has good court vision, but makes slow decisions. That’s feasible for improvement, as he’s making high-quality reads but often chooses the safe passing option. Without many risks being taken, it puts a cap on his potential, unless NBA teams give him more freedom to make tougher passes in a game and live with the consequences. That’s likely happening when he goes to a rebuilding team, but franchises with aspirations in the playoffs won’t allow him to.
In the first play below, Bates milks the clock and bails the defense out by committing to him in the corner. He responded well by faking an overhead ball reversal to hit the post option with the high entry pass. In the second play below, Bates shows good ball movement with the touch pass after he got the entry pass in the midpost. The third play is where the lower assist numbers hurt him. Every NBA player hits the play-finisher in the middle, but Bates chose the safe option with the transition elbow three. Despite the make, the most value is in the middle with the big man’s surefire two points at the rim.
He’s also showing flashes of quick decision-making with the wraparound pass from above the break in the fourth play below after the angle in the middle opened up. It’s feasible that Bates will be a better playmaker in the NBA, where role context was one of the main reasons behind the low assist numbers in Indiana and Missouri.
Creation out of pick-and-rolls
Every NBA scout will determine long-term potential. For that, the easiest path is pick-and-roll creation. In Bates’ case, his handles are too loose to be a primary ball handler. Despite a decent first step and good lateral quickness, Bates struggles to generate paint touches. To project a feasible outcome, most of the sequences below were at the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, where he’s facing his age group and NBA-caliber talent.
In the first play, Bates makes the mistake of rejecting a screen that wasn’t set yet. That made it easier for the defense to ICE him and force a decision out of the elbow. He bailed the defense out by settling for a three off the dribble. In the second possession, Bates decelerates well and explodes to the rim after two dribbles that created the wide-open driving lane. However, he didn’t get the right angle, with the handles being too loose. This led to a forced finish that was easier to block for the defense.
The handling issues continue in the third play below. He picked up his dribble with the step-back at the elbow. Of course, every NBA defender will fully launch and take away the three. But more creative scorers gather in that situation and try to use craft by wide footwork to position Bates to attack the closeout or attack help defense, and try to use the angle to pass from there. The positive in his game is composure. Bates ensured he used fakes until he found the driving angle in the middle. After a good reverse pivot, Bates had enough of a runway to get two feet deep inside the paint for the lay-up.
Overall, the lack of true handles takes away the role of a pick-and-roll creator. Considering the creativity out of closeouts and consistent shooting, NBA scouts won’t have an issue with that, as his role is easier to put in the box of a shooting-heavy, complementary guard.
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Defense
Pick-and-roll
Counting stats are not a feasible source to determine defensive results and effort. But the senior campaign at Missouri helped Bates evolve into a much better defensive stopper, especially in the pick-and-roll. With 44 steals compared to the combined 40 from his sophomore and junior years, Bates shows a first result in the numbers. But it gets better when evaluating his game. Bates improved his frame and is more comfortable handling contact against screening fives. His feel for screen navigation looks decent, and there’s room for him to grow into a stopper at the next level.
In the first play below, Bates draws the offensive foul as a result of good decision-making. He’s comfortable in using his tag where he’s wrapping around the screen for an extra cushion. He dodged the screen well, despite the moving screen. That’s the decision-making and effort NBA scouts want to see. In the second possession, Bates shows his composure by not forcing any unnecessary movement by letting the ball handler know that he must beat Bates off the dribble. NBA teams will take shooters settling for off-the-dribble threes from that far out.
However, the third play shows an area of development. In the high ball screen, the ball handler bumps into Bates, who fell back too far. He kept his calm and dodged the screen well. Regardless, an NBA scorer will attack that driving lane immediately, whereas this shooter bailed Bates out by settling for the shot. Another area of development is to be more active as a helper defender. In the fourth play, the switch was forced, and Bates rotated well. But the driving lane was toward him, and with his assignment so far out of the lane, the right play was to attack the ball handler to try and create the steal for a quick two points on the other end. NBA coaches should allow Bates to be freer on that end at the next level.
Closeouts
As a closeout defender, Bates’s last step is one of the differentiators. He has decent defensive footwork, but must find a way to get better at elevating his burst after the last step. He’s missing the level of burst to immediately close the driving angle after he closes out. The closeouts overall look promising, as he’s not getting too close to the ball handler, which often leads to getting beat off the dribble, whereas he’s keeping enough distance to benefit from his excellent length in contesting shots even when he’s further away. Balancing out his closeouts is feasible as Bates has a good feel of always staying at 180 degrees from his assignment. The other side of the coin is struggling against more explosive athletes in the NBA. Therefore, the fundamentals matter in determining how feasible an improvement is. To stick in the NBA, closeouts are vital to master.
In the first play below, Bates shows a good last step while pivoting strongly with his right foot. He then used his arms well and didn’t allow the scorer to get too deep inside the paint. After seeing the turnaround, Bates thought that it would be a pump-fake. The decision led to two points. Regardless, Bates should gamble on biting on the fake here and then show a quicker second jump. The second play shows how vital a 180-degree closeout is for Bates. He’s jumping right into the shooting lane on the catch-and-shoot elbow three. The third play shows another good play with a strong pivot with his left before immediately embracing physicality. That’s his recipe to keep ball handlers out of the lane. That’s the task at hand for closeout defenders, and NBA scouts shouldn’t be too worried about negatively impacting a defensive rating with him on the floor.
Catch-and-shoot
Bates often misses rotations away from the ball. Most of them are due to his ball-watching. This leads to late switches and open catch-and-shoot threes from opponents. However, read-wise, he’s not making mistakes, as it’s a lack of focus most of the time. For a faster-paced NBA game, that’s not a good sign. Regardless, NBA scouts should focus on whether it’s feasible that he’ll adapt to a faster game. NBA teams have no issue making five or six passes to find open threes. Therefore, Bates has to commit to defending a certain zone, respond to cuts around him, and base his rotations on these elements. The ball is central, but it shouldn’t draw Bates’ full attention.
In the first play below, this led to a late reaction to the elbow three from the NBA range. Bates was too far away to put a hand on the shooter’s face. The ball-watching led to a bad rotation in the second play. Bates saw the opposing five at the top of the key, but missed his teammate because all eyes were on the ball. The rotational mistake led to the ball reversal to the other side. However, when Bates is dialed in and doesn’t follow the ball too much, good things happen. The third play shows an example of him closing a cutting lane while he’s immediately at 180 degrees from the elbow shooter, hard-contesting the eventual shot.
Off-ball defense and cuts
Ball-watching often leads to backdoor cuts. That’s bad news for an NBA team’s defensive rating. The struggles when defending away from the ball are to timely respond to the motion around him. Bates looks slow in processing the game around him, and often that leads to him rotating late or not paying attention at all. Regardless, that'll slowly change once he enters the league and adjusts to a faster-paced game with more motion around him.
The first play summarizes the above-mentioned. Bates’s entire focus is on the decelerating ball handler after utilizing the ball screen. Bates has to potentially switch and has his full attention on that switch. In the meantime, his assignment cuts through the middle, and despite Bates’ decent positioning, he’s bailing out the opponent with the easy pass to the backdoor cutter. The disappointment is seen in how Bates inbounded the ball after that play. The second play shows more promise. Bates sees dribble penetration and his defense collapsing. As the weak-side helper, he has to adjust and try to close the passing angle. The lob pass being finished is a team defense issue rather than his decision-making on this play.
The compensating factor is Bates’ toughness. He’s not consistent in his rotations, but he’s not afraid of physicality. The third play shows an example of what would be a posterizing dunk to be stopped by Bates’ toughness and fearless style of play. The awareness and adjustment of his rotation was a positive here. That’s what NBA coaches must focus on when Bates enters their gym for workouts.
NBA Draft Projection
Based on the strengths and areas of development mentioned in this scouting report, I project Tamar Bates to be a well-regarded prospect in the two-way market. His role is clear, and for his representation, it’s best not to get his name called in the second round. In undrafted free agency, Bates can try to get a guaranteed contract. His defensive prowess, on top of the shooting, gives him a much-wanted role for winning NBA teams, which look for cheap options to fill their rotation. I don’t use destinations often, but Bates’ game makes me lean toward the New York Knicks signing him this summer.