When Cason Wallace was a freshman at Richardson High School, Oklahoma State coach Mike Boynton visited and asked to see him play. Wallace hadn't turned 15 yet or played a single game of high school basketball; it was still football season.
"We pulled him out of football," Richardson coach Kevin Lawson said. "He gets on the basketball floor and I was like, 'Oh my goodness.'"
Lawson had known him since Wallace was a fifth or sixth grader, shooting on the side at practice when his older, brother, Keaton, played at Richardson. Lawson had watched him play in junior high and thought he had potential. As soon as he got on the court in front of Boynton, though, it was clear he was better than everybody else.
Wallace played quarterback, wide receiver and free safety, but left football behind at the end of that season to focus on basketball. Had he gone the other way, "he'd be playing Power Five football," Lawson said.
Two days after the Oklahoma City Thunder traded up to the No. 10 spot in the 2023 NBA Draft for Wallace, a reporter asked coach Mark Daigneault for a player comp.
"He reminds me of Ed Reed," Daigneault said.
The football player?
"Ed Reed, the safety, yeah. He's like Ed Reed out there. He's just got a beat on the ball. He's got great discipline, he's where he's supposed to be, he's not reckless, he's not doing his own thing. But when he smells the ball, he's a hawk on the ball."
Lawson likes the comparison. Wallace's "instincts are off the charts," he said. "Ball in the air, he's going to go get it. I've always said that I felt like he had sticky on the end of his fingers, like this weird deal where he'll stick his hand out and he'll just get a piece of the ball and then it just suctions up to him."
Another comparison, made on the eve of the draft by Wallace himself: your favorite NBA player's favorite defender.
"Jrue Holiday is somebody that I watch a lot," Wallace said at the National Basketball Players Association office in Manhattan, after a Jr. NBA clinic during draft week. "How he controls the pace on offense. And defensively, he gets after it every play and he guards the best player."
Wallace stands 6-foot-4 and has a 6-9 wingspan. At Kentucky last season and Richardson before that, he defended taller players with no fear. "Jrue is considered one of the best defenders in the league because of that right there, and that's where I want to be one day," he said. Since he was a sophomore, Lawson has told friends that Wallace is the next Holiday.
"I said, 'This kid is not scoring the most points, and he's the most important player,'" Lawson said. "'He's so tough and guards. And he's scoring 16 to 18 but he's doing everything. And it's not super flashy. He's Jrue Holiday. I'm telling you guys, he's Jrue Holiday.'"
From a young age, Wallace made defense part of his identity. "My dad taught me that there was a will to want to," Wallace said. "And that's something that I wanted to do. I wanted to be a different person on the court. I wanted to be the one to step up to the challenge and accept the harder task." This is not the way most kids approach the game, but, to Lawson, it is a pride thing.
"It really does matter to him that you respect him," Lawson said. "He knows deep down, if he can lock you up, take the ball from you, cause you to really struggle offensively, then you respect him. And that respect doesn't have to be said, doesn't have to be shown. But when two players play against each other -- and you can see it when you coach, man -- when they go eye to eye, Cason has earned that guy's respect. Or, most of the time at the high school level, Cason owns that guy."
Wallace plays 'no-agenda basketball'
What if Wallace had approached the game differently? What if, all along, he had been taking more shots, playing with more flair?
"I wouldn't be here today if that was the case," Wallace said. "That's not my game. That's not how I see basketball. So that would be me acting out of character, honestly."
Lawson said that Wallace sees basketball like a coach. Earlier in his high school career, this might have cost him some recognition. "He wasn't super high on the national rankings his sophomore and junior year," Lawson said. "Part of that is because Twitter likes guys that dunk and guys that shoot really long 3s and look super-freaky athletic, and that's who gets high on the rankings." Wallace eventually became a consensus five-star recruit, earning attention for the run that his AAU team, ProSkills, went on between his junior and senior year.
"When real [basketball] people watch, they go, 'Dang, that dude is good,'" Lawson said. "And it's not the highlight that you're trying to put out there, it's all the stuff that goes into it. It's the diving on loose balls, it's just getting a piece of the ball. Or the toughness, not letting somebody get by you."
On draft night, Thunder general manager Sam Presti said that Wallace does "all the hard things about playing basketball, the things that a lot of people just don't want to do or have to push themselves to do," and he appears to do them naturally. Presti praised his off-ball defensive IQ, kick-ahead passes, two-hand contests and willingness to box out, saying that he plays "no-agenda basketball."
Two days later, Daigneault called Wallace "a pretty unassuming two-way player: he just does winning things, whether it's visible or invisible." He also said that there is "a lot of power to the simplicity he plays with." Seated next to the 19-year-old at the podium for his introductory press conference, Presti said that Wallace's story is a lesson for young players: "This guy got drafted in the top 10 by just being an incredible team player. A guy that makes the right play all the time."
ProSkills coach Jeff Webster said he was never worried about the rankings. "I always knew, I said, 'You're gonna get it all in the end,'" Webster said. "And draft night showed it." Even leading up to the draft, though, there were mixed messages in mock drafts and scouting reports. The knock on him was that he had limited upside. His comps, though, were players like Holiday, Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet, all of whom are champions and All-Stars, and Derrick White, who starts for a contender and just made First Team All-Defense. What do those guys represent if not upside?
League next for @wallace_cason 💪 pic.twitter.com/I7QEwmOnlC
— Kentucky Men’s Basketball (@KentuckyMBB) April 1, 2023
In Oklahoma City, Wallace will join a stacked backcourt that already includes a flat-out superstar and a 20-year-old passing wizard. Fortunately, he has the skill set to complement both of them. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Josh Giddey are already used to playing on and off the ball, and their size, combined with Wallace's ability to guard up, means that all three guards can share the court. Oklahoma City's offense is a drive-and-kick onslaught, and the front office has spent the past few years building a roster full of young players who can shoot, pass and dribble -- 7-1 create-a-player Chet Holmgren included.
"Basketball is definitely non-positional now," Wallace said. "It's about the players that are on the court, how they complement each other. You're not going to have the ball the whole offensive possession, so it doesn't matter if you're the 1 or 2, 3, 4, you're just out there playing."
In high school, Wallace was clearly Richardson's best point guard, but because there were players who could only play point guard, he sometimes played off the ball. "I was at his workout with the Mavericks, and the scouts asked me how would he be if he played with Luka," Webster said. "And I said, 'He will be the Cason Wallace that he's always been. Because he's going to find out what the team needs and he's going to do it at a high level.'" He played both the 1 and the 2 at Kentucky, and he doesn't care what you call him.
"As long as I'm on the court, my presence is known," Wallace said.
'He's just a leader that people follow'
After his first call with someone seeking intel on Wallace, Lawson worried that he had come off as too enamored with his own player. Lawson wanted his praise to mean something, not to be dismissed as the gushing of an overexuberant high school coach. When he had his next call, however, he did not hold back. He instead issued a warning, one he'd repeat many times to NBA personnel.
"I always start it by saying, 'Listen, I know I'm gonna sound like the coach that just loves his kid, and I haven't coached NBA guys and he's my NBA guy, so I love him and he's the greatest ever,'" Lawson said. "'But the thing about it is: It's all true. There isn't a teacher on campus that wouldn't love to have this conversation with you right now. He's so respectful, does all his work and he's just a leader that people follow.'"
In Wallace's freshman year of high school, the team had dinner at Lawson's house. After eating, all of his teammates went to the living room to watch Texas Tech play against Duke.
"I was looking around, I was like, 'Where's Cason?'" Lawson said. "And Cason is still in the other room, sitting at the table with my two boys and my wife, just hanging out, talking to them. This is a 15-year-old. I was like, 'Cason, you can go in there.' And he's like, 'No, I'm cool, man. I want to hang out with your family.'"
Wallace has "that 'it' factor that other people just want to gravitate towards," Lawson said. That whole season could have been incredibly awkward, given that the upperclassmen had to "hand the keys over to this little 15-year-old," but "it was pretty easy because they just like him, because they respect him. They like him and he's making them better."
As difficult as it might be to believe, Lawson said that, in retrospect, he didn't appreciate Wallace enough. "I was spoiled," he said, to the point where, when Wallace came up with a two-handed chasedown block, it didn't register as a surprise. Later in Wallace's high school career, Lawson knew he could always ask Wallace to say something to the team if it needed a spark, and he knew that everybody would respond.
"If we were picking teams, he would pick guys that were not the top guys so that he could, No. 1, challenge himself, but No. 2, make them successful. It was a dream come true to coach him. It's not something that happens all the time. Those things, on top of the fact that he is the best defender in the state of Texas at the time, the best perimeter defender in this draft class. He checks every box."
In pre-draft interviews, some NBA teams asked Wallace to compare himself to other prospects. Are you a better shooter than Player X? More consistent than Player Y? Wallace does not lack for confidence, but they could not get him to criticize anybody else in order to build himself up. He does turn into a different, much more intense person when he's on the court, but, no matter the setting, he is secure about who he is.
Before he knew he was going to the Thunder, Wallace said that he wanted "to be one of the leaders on the team, no matter where I go." He intends to be "lively on the court or on the bench, in practice, the locker room." He believes that, regardless of his role or whether or not shots are falling, he can find a way to "make an impact on a game somehow."
"He's like, 'I'm going to prove that I can do it the right way,'" Lawson said. "'I can play basketball the right way, and I will be successful at it. And I will get the things that I want.'"
