Cade Cunningham has helped the Pistons get to an 8-game winning streak, longest since 2008.
Even though there have long been huge expectations on his shoulders ever since he was chosen as the first overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, this 2024-25 campaign has been the year where Cade Cunningham has finally put it all together. He’s taken the necessary leap from being a developmental building block on a rebuilding team to becoming a star floor general league-wide, and his numbers back that up.
Cunningham was selected to the 2025 NBA All-Star Game for the first time in his career, and he’s having a career-best season by any measure you analyze it. Entering Friday’s action, Cunningham is averaging a career-high 25.7 points on 45.9 percent shooting from the floor and 36.3 percent from three-point range, with both marks also being personal bests. That’s not everything, however, as his scoring hasn’t been the only statistic that has reached new levels in 2024-25.
He’s crashing the boards more often, with an average of 6.3 rebounds, and his 9.5 assists rank third in the league, only behind Trae Young and Nikola Jokić. Among players with at least 19 games played, Cunningham’s usage rate of 31.9 percent ranks eighth in the league, ahead of players such as Luka Dončić, Anthony Edwards, Ja Morant and Victor Wembanyama.
Usage rate comes with the territory when you’re the engine of a team and thanks to Cunningham’s ascent to stardom, the Pistons seem to have opened their competitive window.
Ahead of Friday’s matchup against Jokić and the Denver Nuggets, the Pistons sit in sixth place in the Eastern Conference with a 33-26 record. The team is on pace to reach the playoffs for the first time since the 2018-19 season — two years before they drafted Cunningham. The 33 wins are two more than Detroit has had in the last two seasons combined.
Detroit fans have been waiting for a team like this to come along since it made Cunningham the top pick years ago. Through some growing pains, it looks as though Cunningham has gotten the Pistons out of the woods and firmly into the playoff picture. The Pistons have benefited from other building blocks like Jalen Duren and Ausar Thompson starting to reach their potential, but Cunningham has been at the center of Detroit’s dream season.
Catch the Pistons vs Nuggets matchup on NBA League Pass as the Pistons look to extend their longest winning streak since 2008.
