Cade Cunningham is eligible for regular-season awards despite falling short of the 65-game threshold. The NBA and NBPA to agreed to waive the 65-game rule in light of the collapsed lung that cost Cunningham 12 games late in the season.
Though he’s a lock for at least second-team All-NBA, Cunningham will not be winning MVP. Nikola Jokić, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Victor Wembanyama have been announced as the finalists. This isn’t to say, in any fashion, that all three of those guys are not deserving finalists or that any of them would be anything but a warranted winner.
But as these playoffs continue to prove, no player is more valuable to his team right now than Cunningham is to the Pistons.
A one-man show
Their elite defense notwithstanding, to say the Pistons — who are down 3-2 in the second round against the Cavs and need a win in Friday night’s Game 6 to keep their season alive — would be sunk without Cunningham would be putting it mildly. He isn’t the engine of the offense; he is the offense (with all due respect to Tobias Harris). Cunningham’s 32.5% usage rate leads the postseason among all players playing at least 20 minutes per game, and so far in these playoffs he has either scored or assisted on almost half of Detroit’s total field goals and points.
He is doing all this despite being the full focus of the defenses he has faced (more on Detroit’s complete lack of a credible second option later). One of which was a demolition-derby Orlando unit that threw multiple huge, physical defenders at him everywhere he turned for seven games.
Detroit got down 3-1 in that series, only for Cunningham, against the toughest defense he’ll face at any point in the East playoffs, to score 109 points over the following three elimination games, That tied LeBron James (2016 Finals vs. Golden State) and Jamal Murray (2020 first round vs. Utah) for the most points ever scored in Games 5-7 of a series while overcoming a 3-1 deficit.
Game 5 | 45 | 13-23 | 14-14 |
Game 6 | 32 | 10-23 | 10-12 |
Game 7 | 32 | 10-18 | 8-10 |
In Game 6 of that series, Orlando had the Pistons down 24 only for Cunningham to outscore the Magic, 24-19, by himself in the second half. Two days later, he became the first player in history to post at least 30 points, 10 assists, two blocks and two 3-pointers in a Game 7, and he cleared those filters comfortably with 32 points, 12 assists and four 3-pointers.
All told, Cunningham leads the playoffs in points, assists and minutes. His 219 assist points are also No. 1 in the playoffs, per PBP stats. He’s shooting over 42% from 3, and 46% in this series against the Cavs. His 360 points so far in these playoffs are the fourth most in history for a player age 24 or younger through the first 12 games of a postseason run. This is Michael Jordan territory.
He is having to do all this just for the Pistons to be passable offensively. Their 110.8 offensive rating, which would’ve ranked 25th in the regular season, ranks seventh in the postseason, and among all teams still alive, only the Timberwolves are worse.
The Pistons’ problem
That offense might be good enough to survive given Detroit’s defense if Cunningham could play the entire game, but even he needs at least a few minutes rest. And in those few minutes? Forget about it. The Pistons get blitzed. So far in these playoffs, they are plus-53 with Cunningham on the floor, and minus-20 with an atrocious 96.7 offensive rating without him. For some perspective, here are the offensive ratings of the other five remaining playoff teams when their superstar sits.
- Thunder without SGA: 126.6
- Spurs without Wembanyama: 112.8
- Timberwolves witout Edwards: 112.2
- Cavaliers without Mitchell: 110.7
- Knicks without Brunson: 110.5
Even the Nuggets maintained a 104.4 offensive rating without Jokić in their first-round series vs. Minnesota. And that 126.6 rating OKC is rocking with SGA on the bench? That’s actually better than the 124.4 they are registering with him on the floor. You want to talk about a luxury? Try being the likely back-to-back MVP and your team getting better offensively in the playoffs without you.
Suffice it to say, Cunningham does not enjoy that luxury. The Pistons are plus-53 in with Cunningham on the floor in these playoffs and minus-20 when he’s off. In Game 5 against Cleveland he put up 39 points, eight assists and seven boards on 6-of-10 3-point shooting and it still wasn’t enough. His second-leading scorer was Daniss Jenkins, who wasnt even on a full-time nba contract until February. Cunningham’s All-Star wingman, Jalen Duren, had nine points and got benched in the fourth quarter.
Let’s talk about Duren for a minute. He has fallen off a cliff offensively, down from 19.5 PPG in the regular season to 10.1 in these playoffs. He’s a restricted free agent this summer and looked like a lock for a max deal, but he’s been exposed in this postseason as, effectively, a a near total offensive byproduct of Cunningham’s creation. He can’t create for himself, or at least he hasn’t so far in the biggest games of the season, and it could end up costing him a lot of money.
More importantly, it could end up costing the Pistons a trip to the conference finals. Frankly, they’re lucky to even still be alive. Had Cunningham not put his cape on against Orlando, they would already be on vacation. And he’s probably going to have to do it again if the Pistons are going to win what would be their fourth and fifth elimination games of these playoffs as they trail Cleveland 3-2 heading into Game 6 on the road on Friday night.
The most important player in the playoffs
No big deal, Cade. All you have to do is carry basically an entire offense, yet again, with zero margin for error. Can he do it? Yes. Will he? We’ll see. But to the point of his value to his team, it’s the fact that he has to do it that makes him, in my mind, the single most important player to any team in the league and certainly in these playoffs.
Again, he’s not going to win MVP. But find me a guy more indispensable. You won’t. The drop from any of the top players to their second-best offensive teammate isn’t nearly as steep as the dive Detroit takes from Cade to Harris. Wemby and SGA have an army behind them. Jalen Brunson has Karl-Anthony Towns and OG Anunoby. Donovan Mitchell has James Harden and vice versa.
Edwards carries a pretty big burden with Julius Randle not having a great postseason and Jaden McDaniels’ efficiency falling off against San Antonio, but it’s still not even close to the weight of Cunningham’s burden. In the closing stretch of Game 5, the Cavs refused to let Cunningham play one-on-one and began throwing two, even three defenders at him as an outright dare for anyone else to beat them. Nobody could.
First, he found Jenkins as Cleveland doubled him in the post. Brick.
Next, he set up Reed with a 4-on-3 downhill advantage after Cleveland sent two defenders to him well behind the 3-point line, but Evan Mobley stoned Reed at the rim.
Here, the Cavs double him again at the point, so he hits Jenkins in the middle of the floor with another man-up advantage, which leads to a quick kick to Harris for an open 3. Brick.
With under 30 seconds to play and the score tied, Cunningham was again doubled and set up Caris LeVert with a one-on-one shot at Harden. Airball.
This isn’t meant as a knock on any of these guys. LeVert was huge in Game 5 with 24 points. Reed has been a lifeboat for the offensively drowning Duren. Harris has come back to earth and has actually been a more erratic shooter than his seven straight 20-point games in these playoffs would suggest, but he’s done all he can.
Still, Cunningham just doesn’t have anywhere near the support that these other stars enjoy, and the Pistons didn’t do enough at the trade deadline to address that problem. All they did was pick up Kevin Huerter, who played three minutes and change in Game 5.
We’ll see what the Pistons do this summer with Duren’s contract and any potential trades to bring in more help, but right now, it’s all on Cunningham to come up with two more elimination-game gems or Detroit is done. That’s the burden he carries.
Through that lens, he’s the league’s most valuable player. Not the best player (though he’s not far off), but indeed the most valuable in terms of what his team would be without him. Everyone else has help.
