After the smile, they saw the suit.
The drowned out chimes meant the most important night of Cason Wallace 's life was at its climax, blinding flashes and endless eyes beginning to shroud him. For the split second his cheekbones relaxed, he stood to button up his satin memento.
It glistened with every embrace. Every hug, every dap. A crimson vest hugged his torso, and a gaudy diamond name plate, clanking like a truckful of glass bottles, bulged above it. None of it stole from the black jacket that wrapped it all together. That wore a message.
Those nearby could only squint at the red-stitched lettering. It wasn't easily legible for those tuning into June's NBA Draft from home, either. It wasn't until he walked to shake Adam Silver's hand as the 10th overall pick , Wallace's back facing the cameras, that it came into focus.
It was a muse. An origin. A reminder. It was three letters, sewn into his jacket repeatedly like a chalkboard in detention.
H-P-T .
A nod to Hamilton Park, Texas, the Dallas neighborhood where Wallace grew up. Where generations of Wallaces were raised. Photos of his brother and parents in black-and-white tint lined the inside of the jacket. So many of the memories that flooded his mind in the moment comprised that gallery.
He'd spent his draft process trying to remind himself of where he came from. Sticking to his roots. Paying homage to those that laid his foundation. As he got dressed in a Manhattan hotel earlier that day, he slipped his black sleeve over the I-75 tattoo just below his shoulder and wrapped himself in his most tangible connection to home. A moment that was meant solely for him suddenly belonged to an entire neighborhood.
Well before Thunder fans got a taste of Wallace's hounding defense and determination, before Rising Star games and seeing him blossom in a vital role as a rookie, they knew one thing.
His home.
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The intersection of Schroeder Road and Forest Lane is a force field of sorts. Those corners grant access to the northside pocket Hamilton Park is tucked away in.
Venture north of Forest down Schroeder and you'll ride past homes that have kept most of their features for decades. A Methodist church built of walnut brown brick that sits atop a short hill. Single story houses that have housed entire family trees.
Hamilton Park was one of the earliest designated Black communities in the country . Hundreds of Black families settled there in the 1950s. It was a gift — no, a right — after bombings and demolition in Dallas' Black communities led to the intentional displacement of families.
Residents walked streets named after impactful Black figures. Harry Belafonte. Dorothy Dandridge. It was a sanctuary. A place born from tragedy but owned and empowered by the pioneers. A place they never had to leave. So they didn't.
"As a kid, I didn't quite understand it," said Wallace's mother, Kim. "I thought that was normal. As I got older, I realized how important it was. We did everything in Hamilton Park."
Cason — or anyone in HPT, which is made up of just over 4,000 people — couldn't go anywhere without knowing someone's brother or mother or cousin.
"Everybody knew everybody," Kim says. "That was important to me."
It's part of why when she got the chance, Kim moved back to Hamilton Park around 15 years ago. She'd been raised there by her grandparents, who moved there when she was around 2, along with her sister and seven of her cousins.
When her aunt no longer wanted to live in their childhood home, the memories Kim clutched were more than enough to pull her back. She returned with her husband, Mike, who'd been raised in the countryside of small town-Atlanta in East Texas, and her two sons.
She'd gone to the same school as almost all her family, a magnet school in the heart of HPT within walking distance of home. Cason walked the same path everyday. The parks, the culture, the familiar faces. The stability, the comfort. The warm embrace she got from every block. HPT made Kim who she was. She wanted it to eventually make Cason who he is.
"I wanted to give him what I had and make it better," she said.
However, Hamilton Park wasn't exempt from any of the vices that corrupt inner-city neighborhoods. Gangs, violence, drugs.
Cason and his brother, Keaton, would play at the neighborhood court until the amber of the streetlights was their only tell of the lines on the basketball and the location of the basket. An unordinary outdoor court dressed with an oversized tarp as its roof.
"Picture a warehouse with the sides cut off," Keaton said.
One full court, six baskets, each with double rims, "so it had to be cash for it to go in," Keaton said. Games against fully grown men. Everything a growing boy needs.
Then the court was shut down as a product of the neighborhood's troubles.
Things that threatened Cason's livelihood — the life that Kim hoped he'd have. But his parents knew what moving back to HPT would come with. Kim was exposed to those things well before Cason was, and knew it was part of the neighborhood's nurturing.
His parents never sheltered him from reality. They feared it'd only pull him further away from his goals.
"It taught them how to make their own decisions," Mike said. "Whatever decision that you make, you've got to live with it."
Mike's childhood looked vastly different. He marveled at what HPT was, at the choices Cason had. He spent years face-to-face with the lingering effects of segregation and racism in a town not much bigger than Hamilton Park. And he showed his son that side of this world, too.
He sat his sons down around the time Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in 2012. He showed them the disadvantages they didn't necessarily know from inside the boundaries of Hamilton Park, the realities they needed to be aware of.
Mike wouldn't leave anything to chance. He gave Cason a chance in the real world before he ever gave him a chance at the league.
"The ups and downs come with it," Cason said. "It's not always sunny days, but we still have to deal with adversity. It put us in a better situation, because now when we get older, we're not new to dealing with stuff."
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Dominoes furiously clacking upon plastic tables. Big Boi's voice hurrying and slowing with OutKast leaking through the speakers. The pounding of a ball on the concrete slab in the Wallace family backyard occupying gaps between clamoring. The grill's haze threatening to burn the sideburns of those snooping for food.
Those were the kind of days Wallace remembers when he thinks of home.
"That's what made us who we are today," he said.
The Wallaces don't struggle to recreate those memories. They always played host to family and friends. And they always felt the lingering love of past generations when they showed up.
There are parts of the home's history that remain. The record player that gets dusted off to spin the "Jackson 5 Christmas Album" every holiday season. A "big 'ol clock" as Keaton describes it.
There are parts of the home that were only just born once Kim moved back in. The markings in the walls that charted her sons' growth. Basketball trophies in place of fine china in the family's displays. An indifference for the blues and '90s rap, mostly Cason's. An uncontrollable smile — also Cason's. If he wasn't smiling in a picture, his mother didn't even want it.
"You could look at Cason and he'd start smiling," Mike said. "It doesn't take much."
Home made Cason love as hard as he hooped. It made him as tough as any kid in the neighborhood. It gave him his glowing spirit.
Home was idyllic. So comfortable it could've become quicksand, a reason to grow stagnant with so much was at stake. And of course, there was the challenge of putting HPT on the map.
Cason, as most consensus five-star, McDonald's All-American, Kentucky-committing prospects do, had the chance to leave Hamilton Park early for greener pastures. To ditch Dallas for whatever prep-to-pro machine he wished. To uproot and build toward his NBA dreams elsewhere.
He hardly considered it.
Instead, his mother posed a question early: "Are you good enough to make it wherever you are?"
So Cason remained at nearby Richardson High School, less than 10 minutes from where he lived, where he won Texas Gatorade Player of the Year. He doubled down on his foundation and built a name in North Dallas, thus building a name across the country. To this day, Mike even says Cason has never had his hair cut by anyone but him.
Every resource he needed was within blocks, not miles.
"I think it taught us that you can stay where you at," Keaton said. "… You don't have to go outside of yourself to accomplish your goals."
There's a sense of pride in knowing all you avoided. Everything you overcame. Remembering every decision you made and how each one steered you in the right direction. In knowing that after years of pouring into your roots, something sprouted in the end.
Cason didn't only count on being talented enough to get where he wanted. He counted on his foundation in Hamilton Park being enough to push him there.
"That's who I am," Cason said. "I'm not really the type to leave where I feel at home. If I feel comfortable somewhere, I'm not gonna go somewhere else just because a lot of people are doing it."
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Less than an hour after the Thunder's Dec. 23 game against the Lakers, the Richardson High basketball team marched down the Paycom Center steps onto the floor.
Wallace hollered at former teammates. He embraced new players. Every year, he and his Richardson teammates would go to a Dallas Mavericks game, which they still talk about in group chats.
This time, it was the 20-year-old hosting the team in Oklahoma City. And in spurts, he saw himself. The perspective was heavy. He realized how much that experience meant, not just for teenagers with hoop dreams, but for himself. In a matter of months, he became a source within arm's reach who could offer a glimpse of the life they yearned for.
In between road trips and back-to-backs and life everywhere but home, he was given a rare reminder of where he's from. A clear link between home and the way he's hoped to stay connected.
"Staying grounded," Wallace says. "Not trying to be someone that I'm not. A lot of times you'll hear about people changing when they come into the league."
While he's away, Hamilton Park is constantly healing. The once-shutdown warehouse court became a rec center. The next generation has a role model.
The beacon of hope behind decades of families in HPT still breathes. It brightens the smile Wallace just can't conceal. It heightens his humility, keeping him forever trying to earn his keep. It's visible in how quickly he sends himself to the floor for a loose ball, or how firm he is when ball handlers hope he'll make life easy. His mother wouldn't let him dribble in their house, why would he let anyone else?
It can be found in his appreciation for the beauty in his struggle, too. The attachment to his roots, the tumbles, the successes, more tumbles, the love, the representation, the steadiness. The weight of being the face of a neighborhood.
He wears it all on his sleeve.
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Born:Nov. 7, 2003
Hometown:Dallas, Texas
College:Kentucky
NBA Draft:Selected 10th overall in the 2023 draft by the Mavericks and traded to the Thunder
Notable:Was ranked No. 8 overall in the 2022 recruiting class by 247Sports and was a McDonald's All American and Texas Gatorade Player of the Year.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC Thunder rookie Cason Wallace shaped by Hamilton Park, Texas
