Lance Thomas was born April 24, 1988, in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Scotch Plains, New Jersey, by his mother, Lily Irvin, who worked as a head manager at a Ford plant. He grew up a city kid — running around parks, playing basketball from sunup to sundown, going inside only to eat or sleep. The water, the outdoors, fishing — none of that was part of his world. Basketball was everything.
Thomas attended Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School for his freshman and sophomore years before transferring to St. Benedict’s Preparatory School in Newark for his junior and senior seasons. At St. Benedict’s, he played under Danny Hurley — the brother of former Duke point guard Bobby Hurley, and now the head coach at UConn. The connection to Duke basketball was already woven into the fabric. Under Hurley, Thomas helped lead St. Benedict’s to two consecutive Prep A Division New Jersey State titles with a combined record of 56-3 over those two seasons. As a senior, he averaged 14.5 points and 6.5 rebounds per game.
The recruiting world took notice. Thomas was ranked 20th nationally by RSCI, 18th by Scout (fourth among power forwards), and named a 2006 McDonald’s All-American — scoring 9 points with 2 steals in the game. He also played on the gold medal-winning USA Under-18 National Team at the 2006 FIBA Americas Championship. He chose Duke over Rutgers, Wake Forest, UConn, Arizona, Florida, and Georgia Tech. He was also an honor roll student who enjoyed drawing — a creative side that would surface again years later at Duke, where he spent a summer interning as a graphic designer in the athletic department.