The Thunder Have Found Their Next STAR...

It seems as though the Thunder have found their next star in Cason Wallace as he has been balling out for Mark Daigneault and Sam Presti when he's gotten opportunities to start for the Thunder and frankly in my opinion I think he looks like the best out of the three guys that we've been having in that starting rotation between him Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins. From what I've seen he looks like the guy that fits seamlessly into this starting lineup. Yes it'd be nice to have as I think our backup point guard but realistically Alex Caruso has been doing a good job of that Aaron Wiggins can do that and when we get Jay Will and Isaiah Hartenstein back and have those two guys coming off the bench we will have a true second unit that can compete with other team starters as well coming off the bench with Cason Wallace as a fifth starter it just brings us more defense it brings us more intensity brings us more three-point shooting just overall I think it works out very well and yes we would like to have JDub play the three instead of the four but right now what we have is cooking and it's working so we might as well keep it going all right we're going to break down why I think he is this final fifth starter why I think he could be the next big star for the Oklahoma City Thunder as well looking into the stats what all he's done for the team in this video but before we get into all that though we're almost at 2,000 subscribers trying to hit it before the end of next week all right before this homestand is up so if you guys enjoy the content you don't want to miss a single minute of the action here at Thunder Digest go ahead and hit that subscribe button it's the best way to support the channel with that out of the way we'll go ahead and get into talking about Cason and Wallace a guy that a lot of people like on this thunder squad i've seen people on twitter talk about him showing clips of like how can you not love Cason Wallace i saw it at NBA University on twitter the other day him showing that clip just his hustle the way he plays the game with such high intensity he just never gives up all right and that's something every team loves to see I've seen him thrown into trade scenarios as well like oh we could throw him in this package like other people also of fans other teams like oh Thunder could trade away so and so because of his high potential and get so and so in return I've seen that happen but now with how he's been playing I think he's a key member of this team to come and it kind of stood out to me when I saw the starting lineup for the Thunder all right against the Rockets the other night this was the starting lineup it was SGA, Dort, Dub, Chet and then Cason Wallace filling in in that fifth role everyone thought maybe surely it's gonna be like Alex Caruso, Isaiah Hartenstein or even maybe like Aaron Wiggins and in that fifth starter role Cason Wallace has looked really really good in this role all right and granted we're eight and now of course with him being a starter I think five games so far Alex Caruso hasn't started a single game I don't think he's going to be a starter and I don't think he should have been I think he's better off as like a six man for us all right coming off the bench he brings more value um as a bench player now with his age um just the fact that he's getting injured more often purely because of how much older he's getting when he gets more usage and more minutes then you see injuries start to pile up on him when he's sitting around 24 to 25 minutes a game like he is right now, you don't really see him getting injuries. But Cason Wallace is a young guy that kind of brings the same thing Alex Caruso does. Hustle plays, great defense, good three-point shooting, although Alex Caruso has been struggling three-point shooting a little bit lately. However, it seems as though he's picking it up now in the month of November. And so it's just one of those things where Cason Wallace is just a younger guy. We might as well give him the minutes there so he can develop mentoring under Alex Caruso. Their game is very similar of how they play you know the intensity the hustle the athleticism the shot the defense everything even the passing there all right they are very similar so it's a great little mentorship going on for Cason Wallace in this starting role he's getting development time he looks really solid he's impacting this team at a high level in that role and i think with if he continues to start continues on this pace he could average around 10 11 points a game this year in a starting role along with like two steals a game an average around 26 to 28 minutes a game as well he's looking very solid and look at the stats as well all right the stats tell the story as well when you're looking at it right here here are regular season averages he started in four games so far played in nine all right he's already averaging uh four minutes more than he did last season okay he started 13 games for the thunder last season not a whole ton you know not a lot it was just for times when we had someone injured um or just resting someone up but looking at his stats a little bit his shooting has gone down all right i will recognize that 49 to 41 all right or 42 really i'm just going to round up then to 42 from 3 to 25 he has not looked great shooting three ball however a lot of our guys haven't okay um we're not really going to look at free throws as he's not really getting to the line a whole lot but he's averaging more rebounds per game around the same assist uh but he's averaging almost double the amount of steals all right almost double the amount of steals in just four minutes difference and getting more games that he's starting in that simple all right he's looking really solid when you look at the totals right now he's taken 24 three-pointers he's only knocked down six i think that's going to increase no doubt about that especially when we get our screeners like Isaiah Hartenstein and Jay will back i think everyone's three-point percentages are going to go up just right now without having screeners to get guys open it's kind of tough for people to get these wide open three-point attempts and they're just kind of chunking up shots at the end but his field goal percentage i'll still take 42 from him all right he's shooting one more uh field goal attempt per game and knocking down three out of seven attempts i'll take that that's okay all right that's fine we can live with it he's only taking one free throw which is and i want to see him take more especially as a guard get to the line more it's fine though um and then looking at this he already has 14 steals all right compared to his 76 last year he'll surely break that with this increase in minutes per game and only six turnovers only six turnovers right now he's averaging less than a turnover a game in 25 minutes of play that's nice to see in 59 points he's gonna he's gonna look really solid this year if he keeps progressing at this rate and he needs to be a starter for this to happen now looking at some of the game logs which i think really tells the story a little bit all right looking at it october was a horrible shooting month for everyone all right this was one of these outliers where everyone's shooting bad Alex Caruso shot 13 from three in october a lot of people just weren't shooting the ball that our offense finally started to get going in november a little bit all right and we're just gonna look at some of the game logs here all right october first game of the year um he didn't get the start i'm pretty sure i think i'm pretty sure he was off the bench if i remember correctly i can't remember all right he might have gotten the start there um but he went two of seven all right four points but the next game i know he started against chicago he went four of eleven thirty six percent from the field he didn't knock down a three-pointer however everywhere else he looked solid six boards two assists along with three steals that's really nice right there um atlanta he didn't start but i know against san antonio he did start 44 four of nine from the field he knocked down a three as well uh two assists a block and two steals right there and only one turnover looking really nice um portland i can't remember but i do know he started against houston we'll look at that one right there two of four from the field with four points yes that is a little bit low but he did have five rebounds one assist one block one steal and no turnovers his uh plus minus i believe was plus five he looked really solid he's just doing everything right it's the hustle play the hustle stats are showing up there when you look at what he's done in the month of november so far 33 from uh three 49 from the field and we have a long homestand going up so you can expect those numbers to increase a little bit as well uh rebounds per game three assists one and a half and he's averaging almost a block and steal per game as well in the month of November we saw in the month of October two and a half steals per game we love to see that right there he's just been balling out he truly has all right I think the offense production is going to increase once we get guys like J Will and Hartenstein back so we can set a lot of you know on and off ball screens to get shooters open which we know Cason Wallace is one of our shooters. All of our shooters are starting to kick in into high gear now. Our three-point shots are starting to fall more. We saw it last game, okay? In general, offense is looking really solid. When we have J. Will and Hartenstein back in potentially two to three weeks, I would expect Cason Wallace's offensive production, along with guys like Alex Caruso and J-Dub, to increase dramatically. I truly believe that. And I think with that pairing, with Cason Wallace and you pairing with a guy like J. Will or Hartenstein, you have found your next superstar in Cason Wallace. You have found your next top tier 3 and D player. If he keeps developing at this pace, you're going to have a monster defense and monster team for years to come here in Loud City. No doubt about that in my mind. But from what I have seen, Cason Wallace is for sure the next star in OKC. That's all I got for this video. Let me know what you guys personally think about Cason Wallace's play so far at the start of the season. I know he's had some rough games, but when he has started, he has looked really good in my eyes. Let me know your personal opinions about it. I'll see you guys in the next video.