For those who were uninitiated, the 2025-26 campaign served as a stark announcement that Cade Cunningham is one of the top-flight playmakers in the NBA.
As a fifth-year floor general, Cunningham led the Detroit Pistons on a 60-win regular season endeavor for only the third time in franchise history, one that secured the top seed in the East for the Pistons. Individually, Cunningham padded his resume with 23.9 points, 9.9 assists and 5.5 rebounds per game en route to another All-Star selection, but the budding star’s career year ran into a huge blockade just before the playoffs.
During a mid-week contest against the Washington Wizards in March, Cunningham suffered a fluke collapsed lung after diving to the floor for a loose ball, and the Pistons’ primary playmaker was sidelined for multiple weeks to recover. Despite that obstacle, Cunningham returned with a renewed sense of motivation and proceeded to take his output to another level with 28.1 points per game while hitting his triples at a 40% clip in Detroit’s two-round playoff endeavor. In the end, Cunningham earned an All-NBA First Team nod for his impact last year after making the Third Team the season prior.
With that experience under his belt, Cunningham is looking to continue pushing the Pistons to new heights now that he has an array of perimeter shooters on the squad, which was the primary pitfall for Detroit last year. So, a more offensively balanced version of the Pistons with Cunningham dictating the flow of the game should lead to a more dangerous attack once Jalen Duren returns to the lineup.
”The guy that [Cunningham] actually reminds me of is Cavs LeBron the second time,” Jason Timph said on the All-NBA Podcast. “He’s strangling the pace. Like, he always feels like he’s in control of the flow of the game, but then in addition to that, there’s a physical rim pressure element. Cade plays with a downhill force that is kind of unique among the primary ball handler guys that we have today.”
In comparison to other lead creators, Cunningham also supplies the Pistons with an immense amount of defensive versatility. At 6-7 and upwards of 220 pounds, Cunningham is switchable with most players one through three, and he’s developed a penchant for chase-down blocks in the transition game. From a rim protection standpoint, you’d be hard-pressed to find a guard in the NBA who’s as viable of a defender as Cunningham is across the board, which completely opens up the Pistons ability to deploy Ausar Thompson for even more on-ball pressure.
Given that profile, Cunningham has established himself as a true two-way playmaker with both size and skill, an archetype that is fading out of the league in recent years. So, consider Cunningham a throwback player for the way that he methodically dictates the flow of the game for the Pistons on a nightly basis, a task that might’ve grown even tougher since the rest of the Eastern Conference retooled during the offseason.
Moving forward, Cunningham and the rest of his Detroit teammates have another exhibition installment on the docket tomorrow night against the Minnesota Timberwolves with top-off promptly at 8 pm at the Target Center.