Mike Boynton on Cade Cunningham’s Flow and Speed: ‘That’s Called Greatness’

Mike Boynton came on the Pistols Firing pod on Tuesday on the third anniversary of his initial hiring back on March 24, 2017 and of course we talked about Cade Cunningham and what the future looks like.

I didn’t know what direction that was going to go in, but we started diving deep on his future, his makeup and the stuff beyond what makes him great on the court. You can look at Xs and Os with him, and you’ll find that they are capital Xs and capital Os, but it’s the intangible stuff, the stuff beyond the stuff that makes him Cade Cunningham.

Here’s a snippet from that convo.

Kyle Porter: “The more I watch his stuff, he’s so easy. I think about Vince Young playing quarterback and you watch him, and you’re like, ‘Is he in fifth gear or is that second gear? I don’t know what gear that is.'”

Mike Boynton: “That’s called greatness. I don’t want to build him up too much, but he’s the best player in the country for a reason. Usually you watch guys with that talent level and it doesn’t seem like they’re putting out all the effort. A guy like me can put out 10 times as much effort and look like I’m playing hard, and I can’t produce that way.”

Porter: “It’s incredible to watch. I think that’s what draws us to sports sometimes is watching guys like that, and you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s what being great, that’s what being elite looks like.'”

Boynton: “That’s what always impressed me about Russ. In a league where — maybe the NFL has an argument — the most athletic players in the world are in the NBA in my opinion. When you can stand out athletically, when your athleticism stands out amongst the best athletes … that’s greatness. I always admire the best at anything they do. That’s why I watch all sports. I watch tennis, I watch Serena Williams. I don’t know how to play golf, but I enjoy watching Tiger and the best at whatever they do I have a great admiration for.”

Porter: “I think it gets normalized. You’re like, ‘Oh, yeah Tiger’s good compared to all these guys,’ but you don’t understand how good these other guys are.”

Boynton: “Exactly. That’s the part when you’re talking about guys who can make a play. They don’t realize that the guy who doesn’t play for the team that they think they’re going to play for is better than them. I tell guys all the time, ‘That guy you think stinks that’s sitting on the bench for the Thunder, he’s better than you man.'”

I enjoyed every second of that convo and could have gone 15 minutes on non-OSU stuff or just riffing on literally anything, but we eventually brought it back to Kalib Boone and 2021 and everything else that’s on deck for Boynton and his organization in the weeks and months ahead.

It was a fun back and forth from somebody who legit gets it and as always, I appreciate him joining us to talk hoops, recruiting and Oklahoma State.

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