Cade Cunningham's Latest Accolade Comes as No Surprise to Mike Boynton
STILLWATER – Friday morning, Sports Illustrated named Cade Cunningham a First-Team All-American in their inaugural rankings. It’s just the latest of national awards and accolades that Cunningham has received over the past few months and it comes as absolutely no surprise to Mike Boynton.
“I think in many ways what everybody is seeing is a validation of what I’ve always believed: he’s the best player in the country,” Mike Boynton told Pokes Report of Cade Cunningham. “So, all these awards, I’m not necessarily surprised by it, but I’m happy for him. He’s worked really hard to earn all these accolades and I’m excited about having the opportunity to work with him.”
In early March, Cunningham was named the 2020 Naismith High School Player of the Year, as well as being tabbed a McDonald’s All-American, the MaxPreps National Boys Basketball Player of the Year and is a finalist for the National Gatorade Player of the Year.
Cunningham is set to become the highest-ranked player to play at Oklahoma State since 2003, the eighth five-star to sign with the Cowboys since ’03 and is the first two-time All-American at since Marcus Smart in 2012.
Watch Cade Cunningham's season highlights
I spoke with head coach Mike Boynton on Friday morning about the type of impact that Cade’s going to have when he gets on campus.
“I think the thing that gets overlooked when you think about Cade being the No. 1 player is just how talented he is,” coach Boynton said. “He would probably agree that he’s not the most athletically talented kid in the class, he’s just the best basketball play because he does so many things that impact winning. He may be the most competitive kid that I’ve ever evaluated; he’s got a different mentality in terms of his focus and his goals. So, every year, he’s set out to achieve something specific and he’s accomplished it all. His freshman year when I first saw him, he was more of a power forward than a point guard. He played off the ball primarily and he decided he wanted to become a point guard and his size certainly helped, but his ability to play off ball screens is something that’s been noticeably improved. His ability to defend multiple positions is something that we’re going to really, really value. He’s a kid who undoubtably can score when he needs to, but his best attribute is making his teammates better.”
One of the issues, I supposed it’s unfair of me to call it an issue because it’s one of the best possible things a coach could have, is how’s the coaching staff going to utilize the three talented point guards in Avery Anderson, Isaac Likekele and Cade Cunningham.
All three are explosive, all three can get to the basket and all three create plays for other teammates.
“I played the position; I put a high level of value on our program being good at the point guard position and in my mind, you can’t have too many good point guards,” coach Boynton said. “The more good ball-handling, decision-making playmaker guys that you have, the better you’re going to be as an offensive team. But again, they’re so different in many ways, you know Avery [Anderson’s] got the quickness, the speed, can be a pest defensively, Likekele is like a bull in a china shop who can just get downhill and can be on top of you physically. Then with Cade, you have his height, length and his versatility, he can certainly handle the ball from the outside, but he’s going to be a pretty good post-up player for us. So, I think that’s one of the things where people will be intrigued by how many different ways we’ll be able to use them.”
Like I said, a great ‘problem’ to have. Cunningham averaged 14 points a game this past season while shooting 47% from the 3-point line, but he played in roughly only half of each game. He also averaged five rebounds and dished out an impressive five assists per game.
