The Joneses of Charlotte were a Carolina family before they were a Duke family. Then their oldest son went to Duke. Then their daughter went to Duke. Then their youngest son finally came home to Duke too. By 2022, when Coach K was making his final coaching run at a national championship, the Jones family had three children in Duke uniforms — and a fourth at Davidson — and they were sitting in the front row of Cameron Indoor Stadium directly behind Mike Krzyzewski's family for his final home game.
Bates Jones was born March 14, 1999 in Charlotte, North Carolina, the youngest of four children of Steve and Becca Jones. He attended Charlotte Latin School in his hometown — the same elite prep school where his older brother Daniel had been a star athlete before him. The basketball pedigree at Charlotte Latin was real. Bates was a three-year letterwinner under Coach Chris Berger, was named CISAA All-Conference as a junior, averaged 15.7 points and 9.5 rebounds as a senior, and was selected Charlotte Observer Player of the Week multiple times. He was a member of the Headmaster's List academically.
But basketball wasn't his only sport. The bigger story at Charlotte Latin was that Bates Jones could also throw a football. He was an all-state quarterback as a senior, named team MVP, and led Charlotte Latin to the 2016 NCISAA State Championship — the football one. Six-foot-eight, 225 pounds, and he could play either sport at a high level. The basketball trajectory was the one that made sense for a frame that big. The football had been the family obsession.
Daniel Jones, two years older than Bates, had also played quarterback at Charlotte Latin before going to Duke as a quarterback. Daniel started for the Blue Devils for three years (2016-18), was a two-year captain, and left after his junior year. He was selected sixth overall in the 2019 NFL Draft by the New York Giants. He had grown up a Carolina Panthers fan in a family that, in his father's words, "leaned more Carolina than Duke because of their roots." Then Daniel committed to Duke and the family converted.
By the spring of 2017, Bates was a 6'8 senior with all-state football and all-conference basketball credentials. His college options were stronger in basketball than in football. He committed to Davidson — the small, academically prestigious, basketball-loved school in Davidson, North Carolina, where Steph Curry had become the most famous player in school history a decade earlier. Bates would play for Bob McKillop, the dean of Atlantic 10 coaches, learning the same pass-first, ball-movement offense that had launched Curry.