After a top five finish in the MVP voting last season, Detroit Pistons point guard Cade Cunningham was ranked among the league’s top players ahead of training camp
Now that the 2026-27 campaign is in full view, the Detroit Pistons have a trio of players included in the most recent collection of the top 100 players in the NBA. Earlier in the week, both Jalen Duren and Ausar Thompson landed on the ranking with JD checking in at No. 33 and AT holding down the 59th position as two of the Pistons’ three franchise pillars.
Naturally, All-NBA First Team point guard Cade Cunningham was the highest-ranked of the Motor City trio, and he came in at a respectable No. 8 on ESPN’s list of the top hoopers in the league.
Last season, Cunningham served as Detroit’s floor general en route to a 60-win campaign that secured the top seed in the Eastern Conference for the Pistons. Cunningham made his second consecutive All-Star Game and battled through an untimely collapsed lung at the tail end of the regular season to boot, so his contributions to Detroit’s success cannot be underplayed.
Cunningham averaged 23.9 points, 5.5 rebounds and 9.9 assists per game during the 2025-26 campaign as the head of the snake in the Motor City. Quite often, Cunningham would work his way into a game by setting up his teammates for open looks while the Pistons defense created pressure going the other way. More often than not, that was enough for Detroit to win, but Cunningham was more than taking over in the clutch when the Pistons needed a bucket. Given that importance, Cunningham held the ninth-highest usage rate in the NBA at 30.5%, which reinforced his value to Detroit basketball.
But despite all of Cunningham’s effort, the Pistons were bounced from the Eastern Conference Semifinals by the Cleveland Cavaliers in a hard-fought seven-game series that capped off a 40% three-point shooting stretch from Cade in the postseason. Overall, the Pistons struggled from the perimeter during the playoffs outside of Duncan Robinson, so Cunningham’s contributions were pivotal in keeping Detroit alive for as long as they were.
Unsurprisingly, the Pistons’ playoff exit precipitated an active offseason that was focused on bringing in a collection of outside shooters to Motown. Along those lines, the Pistons worked out deals for John Collins, Isaiah Joe, Taurean Prince and Gary Harris during the summer, four players who all connected on triples at a 40% clip a season ago, to help rectify that issue.
On top of those acquisitions, Detroit also made a move to land former Stanford point guard Ebuka Okorie in the first-round of the 2026 NBA Draft, so the Pistons should have more on-ball creation in the half-court with his influence on the team as well. Okorie was noted for his ability to score as a self-creator after leading the ACC in scoring as a freshman, so the Pistons have ample playmaking ability with Okorie and Daniss Jenkins positioned behind Cunningham on the depth chart in the Motor City.
While it may be difficult for Cunningham to replicate his fifth-place MVP finish from a year ago, the Pistons floor general has done more than enough to establish himself as one of the elite point guards in the game today.
