Top Performance Series: Cason Wallace

Breaking down the potential top-10 pick in a late February game versus Auburn.

The idea behind the top performance series is to go back and watch the best, or one of the best, box score games of each prospect's season to see how they looked when they were performing at their highest individual level, and what that might show us about their ceiling as a prospect.

Cason Wallace is a name that consistently comes up in lottery pick conversations and often even in the top-10. There is no questioning his floor as a player, but the real indecision is if he is a safe pick that immediately contributes to winning. Or if there is a higher upside like many of the Kentucky guards that came before him.

In this late February game versus Auburn, he not only scored the ball well, but also created nine assists along with his high defensive impact.

Offense

At 6-foot-4, Wallace has good size to play the prototypical point guard position and demonstrated this throughout the game. There were multiple possessions where he was orchestrating the offense by getting his teammates in the right position and getting the ball where it needed to go.

Wallace does a tremendous job of keeping the ball moving the flow of the offense going whether in the half court or in transition when leading the fast break.

The Richardson, TX native is a player who never seems to be sped up and has become proficient at playing at his own pace.

He looks good operating in ball screens with an ability to attack, step behind and knock down a jump shot and create for others.

Outside of these ball screen possessions is where the questions start to come in for Wallace and they showed up in this game.

There seem to be real concerns about his ability to attack off the bounce, create advantages and pressure in the lane and then capitalize on those with his own finishes.

From this game, he was only able to finish around the rim in completely open court blow-by's, but struggled in the half court and had a couple tough looking floaters.

It will be very interesting to see if Wallace is truly another Kentucky guard who shows more of this part of his game after he enters the NBA.

The final intriguing part of freshman’s game is the 3-point shooting.

The shot looks good, but after shooting 46% from behind the arc through the first 14 games of the season he hit on just 22% the rest of the season.

The free throw percentage was also solid for the season as a whole but the shooting and floor spacing being real would help provide more versatility for Wallace as someone that could also play off of a fellow primary initiator.

Defense

There is little to question on the defensive end of the floor for Wallace outside of the overall versatility.

Defending as many positions as possible is the name of the game in the current NBA and it's fair to question if he will be able to guard more than the two in the backcourt.

With that said, he is a menace on the ball who is excellent navigating ball screens in a variety of coverages.

He does a really nice job of staying in front of the ball and giving his chest to cut off drives and not being aggressive with his hands until the time is right.

This activity on the ball, along with his activity off the ball, combine for a good defensive playmaker that averaged just under two steals per game and half a block per game.

Wallace also does all of the subtle little things off the ball. He stunts and recovers at a driver better than anyone in the class and jumps into passing windows to disrupt the flow of the offense.

Bottomline, he is a tremendous on ball defender who is consistently active and engaged off the ball to contribute to all around defensive scheme.

Ceiling

Primary initiator with floor spacing ability and primary guard defender.

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