The Detroit Pistons have representation within the top 10 for the new edition of NBA 2K27
Now that the regular season is coming into focus after the NBA released its official schedule last week, the hoops calendar is starting to feel a lot more normal. With another 82-game stanza waiting just two short months from now, that means it’s time for another edition of the NBA 2K video game series, and there’s a member of the Detroit Pistons prominently ranked in the top 10 of active players for 2K27.
To no one’s surprise, Cade Cunningham is the highest rated member of the Pistons for this year’s game, and he comfortably cracked the top 10 with a 94 overall rating, which qualified the Detroit floor general for No. 8 across the league just ahead of Steph Curry and Kevin Durant.
Last year, Cunningham helped propel the Pistons to 60 wins in the regular season for only the third time in franchise history, which conveniently locked up the top seed in the Eastern Conference for Detroit in the process. Cunningham averaged 23.9 points, 9.9 assists and 5.5 rebounds per game along the way during a campaign that established the Pistons as a legitimate challenger in the East. Ultimately, Detroit only lasted two rounds in the postseason after falling in a seven-game series to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Semifinals, but that result was not from a lack of effort on Cunningham’s part.
To the contrary, Cunningham officially positioned himself as one of basketball’s elite with a fifth-place finish for the Most Valuable Player award last season, which actually begs the question of whether he’s ranked too low in this year’s 2K game. At the moment, Cunningham is sitting behind Anthony Edwards, Giannis Antetouknmpo and Jalen Brunson just outside the top five, but Detroit’s star point guard has a strong argument to leapfrog at least a couple players ahead of him.
When comparing Cunningham and Edwards, the former has a 32.4 usage rate while the Minnesota scorer checks in at 29.1, so the data suggests that Cade is more involved in the scope of Detroit’s offensive success as their primary playmaker. Moving over to Giannis, it is difficult to use last season’s information against the former NBA champion considering he was injured for much of the year, but Antetouknmpo traditionally needs other players around him to create balance offensively since he’s more of a play finisher. Cunningham, on the other hand, self-created at a high level while also serving as the engine for the Pistons’ offense writ large, which makes his nightly burden just a bit heavier than what Giannis experienced in Milwaukee.
As for Brunson, the Eastern Conference’s other premier point guard just guided the New York Knicks to a title, so it makes sense that their star player would land in the top five for NBA 2K27. The basketball world revolved around the Big Apple for the month of June, so Brunson is the most deserving of his ranking concerning the players immediately above Cunningham.
With regards to the rest of the Pistons, both Ausar Thompson and Jalen Duren were assigned 85 ratings for this year’s game, giving Detroit a strong trio with Duren and Thompson sitting well below the top 10 threshold.
