Cason Wallace looks wonderful
Another keeper makes impossible roster math for OKC
Am I proud of myself for declaring, back in March, that the Thunder would win this year’s title? Now that all of their most feared West rivals have been retired, and they’re up 2-0 against the Wolves, you bet.
One of the coolest things about their first 13 playoff games of 2024-2025 is that it included trials. That Denver series was a pressure-cooker, perhaps even the shadow NBA Finals. The Thunder trailed 1-0 and 2-1, had overtime—and then a mega-stakes Game 7.
The young Thunder began acing tests. They won Game 7, against Nikola Jokić’s Nuggets, by 32.
Through the process, players who were nice-to-have have become indispensable. Their three max-salary players for the long haul are sure to be Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren, and Jalen Williams.
But now: Jaylin Williams and Cason Wallace have been outstanding in the advanced defensive metrics. Isaiah Joe is shooting the lights out. David Thorpe mentioned in passing yesterday that he thought Alex Caruso might be the MVP of the entire NBA playoffs so far. And it was Isaiah Hartenstein who almost single-handedly solved the problem of the Thunder getting bullied in the paint.
My guess is that other NBA teams could call Oklahoma City this offseason, and offer a bunch of good stuff for Cason Wallace, and … now that he has proven himself to be, at age 21, a go-to stopper in the crucible of the playoffs, and a coolheaded decision maker on offense in big moments … they simply won’t trade him to you. That’s my guess. Cason Wallace has become the kind of guy you go into the luxury tax to keep.
But the math is, the Thunder still have to ditch 15 players over the next three years. I don’t know what’s better for the 29 other teams: aggressively try to trade for their young players and picks (Adam Flagler is good! Kenrich Williams is good! Ousmane Dieng might be good!) or sit back and watch the show?
The Thunder have picks 15, 24, and 44 in this year’s draft. Keeping even one of those would mean cutting someone most teams would like to have. Keeping all three is almost unthinkable.
Ajay Mitchell is where it gets interesting. He’s impeccable: Long, quick, smart, affordable, athletic. He’s among the Thunder’s very best defenders and most efficient shooters. (In very limited playoff minutes, Mitchell’s defensive Estimated Plus-Minus is almost a tie with Luguentz Dort, and at 62 percent Mitchell’s True Shooting is better than Shai’s 58.)
And the Thunder simply don’t have minutes for Ajay Mitchell. He’s healthy, and most playoff games he plays not at all.
There’s little chance the Thunder can use their 2025 draft picks on someone who’ll outplay Ajay Mitchell next year. And so they’re playing a game of using picks to … upgrade the quality of players who will only see the court in garbage time?
(If you were, say, Nique Clifford’s agent, would you want the Thunder to draft him?)
The math is ironclad. Because of the absurd number of picks they have, the Thunder must cut a whole roster worth of players over the next three years. With every Cason Wallace that blooms, things are great, but they have less flexibility to solve that one particular problem.
One part of me says: smart teams will be first in line to trade for the players who have already been schooled in the NBA’s best development system. Trade for those players.
And you know what I’d offer for them? Pick swaps. Sam Presti doesn’t need more picks, instead he needs picks that are so exceptional they’ll bring players who are better than the ones he’s already playing.
As a Blazer fan, for instance, I think about the fact that Portland has two future swaps with the Bucks, who might be losing Giannis soon, and then will be led by a guy who’ll miss next season to an Achilles tear, and oh yeah they also barely have any draft picks.
Either or both of those swaps—in 2028 and 2030—could be at the tippety top of the lottery. Who on the Thunder roster could you get for those? It’d be a way for the Thunder to reduce players and salary while raising their theoretical long-term number of championships. In effect, they’d lose players like Cason Wallace and Isaiah Joe, play almost-as-good Ajay Mitchell and Adam Flagler, and all the while gain a couple of shots at finding the star who’ll one day replace Shai.
Another part of me says: don’t call the Thunder. What if no one does? If no one takes the Thunder’s calls, if no one trades the Thunder future picks for current youth, then OKC’s comedically large sack of draft picks stops being funny.
They will have no choice but to simply start cutting good players. I don’t know how you pick between Adam Flagler and Nique Clifford—or whoever the Thunder draft. But those are the choices they’ll be making, and over time the quality of the players they gift to their competitors will go up and up, which is a weird kind of progress.
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The way I have always interpreted the construction of the roster was that the Thunder would draft, develop young players to then replace the current starters on a periodic basis.
Cason is an excellent example, I believe he could be an All-Star level talent with more playing time and careful player development. If OKC win this year, I think there's an argument to trade Lu Dort for draft picks and move Cason into the starting five full time.
The same goes for Nikola Topic who hasn't even played a minute due to injury. The coaching staff will likely take next season to evaluate and give him a diet of spot minutes in the NBA/regular G league minutes. The hope being is that he eventually replaces Isaiah Joe in the reserves.
In terms of outgoings, I could see Ousmane Dieng and Dort moving on if the Thunder win this year