Cass Tech championship basketball team want top NBA prospect to play for Pistons

On Wednesday afternoon, less than two weeks before the NBA draft lottery and about a half-mile away from the Detroit Pistons’ home — Little Caesars Arena — a recipe for the future success of the NBA franchise was being drawn up.

The ingredients included the following: hustle, team sacrifice, constant communication on the court and the selection of French phenom Victor Wembanyama if the Pistons are lucky enough to come away with the first overall pick on May 16.

This strategic road map wasn't being laid out by a group of Pistons executives huddled around a draft board. Instead, the recommendations flowed from the minds of Detroit high school seniors Travon Cooper, Isaac Sanders and Mekhai Walker, who each have experienced championship success much more recently than the Pistons as members of Cass Tech’s 2022-23 state championship boys basketball team.

A little more than a month removed from the team’s 78-61 victory against Muskegon in the Michigan High School Athletic Association Division I title game at the Breslin Center in East Lansing, which capped a thrilling seven-game state tournament run that led to Cass winning its first boys state basketball championship in school history, the versatile trio on the court displayed another talent — analytical skills. And those are skills that Cooper, Sanders and Walker hope to one day put to use through future careers in sports management (Cooper and Walker) and sports journalism (Sanders).

“Being a part of the game all of my life, I feel like I see the game differently from the way most people see it,” said Sanders, whose sports writing already can be read in the Detroit Dialogue: The student voice of Detroit’s High Schools http://www.detroitdialogue.com/.

When Sanders evaluates players and teams, he says he looks for “Basketball IQ.” And in applying that concept to the upcoming draft, Sanders said he believes a strong team culture that promotes a high basketball IQ must still be in place for any team to be successful, even if a team drafts a player like Wembanyama, or one like Brandon Miller out of the University of Alabama, who also was touted by the Cass Tech trio. “You have to look at the game mentally, it’s not all about the physical game. Your mind must be intact to be successful on the court.”

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Cooper, who perhaps saved his best high school game for his last, tying his celebrated sophomore teammate (2023 Detroit Free Press Dream Team selection) Darius Acuff for team top scorer honors in the state championship game with 19 points to go along with eight rebounds, hopes to be able to watch his own players perform in the clutch one day as an aspiring NBA general manager. He says his Detroit background will be an asset during his quest to obtain a position in the game on a par with Troy Weaver, the Pistons general manager and Detroit native Scott Perry, general manager of the New York Knicks, who still are alive in the NBA playoffs.

“Coming to Cass Tech and being from Detroit in general, has taught us a lot of grittiness; we’ve had to hustle for a lot of things that we have,” Cooper said. “And coach (Steve) Hall (the 2023 Detroit Free Press Dream Team Coach of the Year) has done a great job of instilling discipline into us, and that will take me very far not only in my school career, but also in my career later in life.”

The biggest dreamer of the trio — if you take his own words to heart — is Walker, who was a tri-captain on the championship team, along with Sanders and Christian Hairston.

“I’ve always wanted to own the Pistons one day,” Walker said firmly, without any hesitation. “It’s something that I’ve dreamed about and I feel like being close to home and being around basketball — something that I love — makes owning a team a goal that I hope I will be able to do in the future.”

Cooper, Sanders and Walker shared their thoughts and dreams while seated inside a first-floor room at Cass Tech, which normally is used for ROTC. Thanks to the kindness of Master Sgt. Marcus Malone, a flat-screen television was hooked up to cable, which allowed the student-athletes to review their state championship victory with expert, analytical eyes and minds. And, at one point, Cooper and Sanders appeared to simultaneously have an epiphany as both bounded to the screen and provided an explanation for a defensive breakdown at the end of the first quarter, which led to a first-quarter buzzer-beating three-point shot against the Technicians.

Later on Wednesday, a longtime supporter of youths in Detroit said that the scene that took place that afternoon in the modest space at Cass Tech is something that needs to happen more often across the city.

“Kids need to dream like we did in my day. And at the end of the day, our kids playing sports need to be a little bit smarter about taking everything they learn through their sport to the real world,” said 56-year-old Horatio Williams, the founder of the Horatio Williams Foundation, which hosted a special luncheon for the Cass Tech team on April 24.

When asked what was on the menu, Williams said: “Kids love burgers and shakes” made at his center. But Williams’ pride could really be heard in his voice as he explained what the gathering meant from a community standpoint.

“I fed the whole Cass Tech team and I know all the players,” Williams stated. “That means something because they know that they can talk to me.”

Not only does Williams know the players on the Cass Tech team, there was a time when he excelled playing their sport.

Following Williams’ senior season at Osborn High School in 1986, his name could be found among the top 40 players in the city that comprised the Detroit Free Press All-PSL/Detroit teams. And to say 1986 was a good year for boys basketball in Detroit would be a huge understatement considering that two of the members on the Free Press honor teams — Northern High School’s Derrick Coleman and Mackenzie’s Doug Smith — were future first-round NBA draft selections, with Coleman going first overall in 1990.

Williams’ play at Osborn earned him a scholarship to Tuskegee University and he made the more than 800-mile trek down to Tuskegee, Alabama, believing that he also could develop into a future NBA player at a Historically Black University, as had been demonstrated by big Rick Mahorn, the pride of Hampton University, who was one of the most popular players on the Pistons at the time.

However, before Williams could play a game at Tuskegee, his basketball playing career was snatched away when he was hit by a drunken driver while he was riding his bike near campus. The collision left Williams in a coma for three days, and mangled his left leg, which he described as being “torn in half,” that still has plates in it today.

“I didn’t get a chance to play a college game, but I had to learn how to play the game of life real quick,” said Williams, who was able to remain on scholarship at Tuskegee and whose 501c3 foundation today provides a broad range of programming and events targeting youth development, academic enrichment, college preparation, job placement, affordable housing and much more. “I’ve been in business for 32 years and I have been helping families for 32 years. Instead of signing autographs as a professional athlete, I have signed checks that have helped families,” he said.

Williams said the April 24 luncheon for the Cass Tech state championship team also was memorable to him because of another special guest, former Pistons Coach Dwane Casey, who now works in the team’s front office.

“Most people make an appearance; they come and go. But Casey stayed for a whole hour,” said Williams, who also spoke enthusiastically about the connection he has made with Weaver, who Williams has even spotted “getting his steps in” by walking down Jefferson to Belle Isle. “Casey and Troy Weaver aren’t from Detroit, but, as a community, we need to support them because they are showing that they are one of us now.”

The same connection to Detroit that Williams has witnessed from Casey and Weaver is something that he hopes all of his Cass Tech luncheon attendees and other student-athletes he has touched in the city will replicate when they go off into the world.

“The same mentality and lessons that these kids have learned from their coaches and others, they can go anywhere in the world and be successful, but they also need to know to give back and be supportive of the community where they came from,” Williams stressed.

And if the way the Cass Tech team approached its state championship is any indication, it appears Williams will get his wish that Detroit will not be forgotten by the young men who proudly wore the green and white this season.

“This state championship win, it wasn’t just for Cass, and it wasn’t just for the kids here,” Sanders said with conviction. “It was for the city of Detroit, honestly.”

Scott Talley is a native Detroiter, a proud product of Detroit Public Schools and lifelong lover of Detroit culture in all of its diverse forms. In his second tour with the Free Press, which he grew up reading as a child, he is excited and humbled to cover the city’s neighborhoods and the many interesting people who define its various communities. Contact him at: stalley@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @STalleyfreep. Read more of Scott's stories at www.freep.com/mosaic/detroit-is/.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Cass Tech championship basketball team want Pistons to draft Wembanyama