The Detroit Pistons are in superb position heading into the All-Star Break
While the Detroit Pistons were out of action on Thursday, the Western Conference-leading Oklahoma City Thunder were taken to task by the Milwaukee Bucks for a 110-93 loss, shifting their record to 42-14 on the season.
Since the Pistons were stationary before the All-Star Break after defeating the Toronto Raptors just one night prior, Detroit leap-frogged the defending NBA Champions for the best winning percentage in the league at 75.4%. For reference, two seasons ago the Pistons held a 8-46 record leading into the All-Star Game in what was a historically poor season for the franchise, so the complete 180-degree recovery that’s taken place in Motown is a turnaround that needs to be studied.
But by any metric, the most important variable on the Pistons’ path to success can be distilled into two words– Cade Cunningham.
Selected with the first pick in the 2021 NBA Draft out of Oklahoma State, Cunningham was entrusted with the task of leading the Pistons back to prominence, as arduous as that challenge may have been. There were some lean years to be sure, such as the 2023-24 season when the Pistons stumbled into the All-Star Break with just eight victories.
But for as low as the lows in Motown were, Cunningham is in the process of leading Detroit to nearly equal heights, though it is impossible to pinpoint what the rest of the season has in store. To this stage, however, Cunningham and the Pistons already set a new franchise mark with 13 consecutive victories, a streak that spanned nearly the entire month of November.
After that, the Pistons climbed into first place in the East and haven’t looked back since. While perched atop the conference, Detroit asserted their dominance over the teams seeded in second and third place with a 2-1 season series victory over the Boston Celtics and two 30-plus point wins over the New York Knicks. So, the Pistons haven’t ascended to this level by sweeping the floor with lottery-caliber squads– they’re doing it by pummeling some of the league’s top competition.
When facing teams above .500, the Pistons have put together a 20-6 record through a strict diet of points in the paint and physical defensive continuity. Cunningham has helped steer the team into legitimate title discussions in just his fifth professional season, and he currently ranks as the top assist-provider in the NBA.
No player in the association has more total assists than Cade this year, and the Pistons’ floor general could find himself central to Most Valuable Player discussions depending on how many games the other top contenders log in the back end of the season. But whether Cunningham walks away with that individual hardware or not, the Pistons have loudly announced their return to the upper echelon of the basketball landscape.
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