Every NBA star has a moment, a declaration on the biggest stage. Often, that stage happens to be in one of the most iconic arenas in the league, Madison Square Garden.
Detroit Pistons guard Cade Cunningham didn’t realize his moment was coming, but when an errant pass by New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson drifted his way, the only thing standing between him and that moment was swingman Mikal Bridges bearing down for a steal. Three seconds and one behind-the-back dribble later, Cunningham found himself at the rim for two of his 33 points in Detroit’s Game 2 victory in last season’s playoffs, the Pistons’ first postseason win since 2008.
Shortly after that third-quarter dunk, he locked eyes with the author of his own share of Garden memories: Carmelo Anthony.
Cunningham didn’t necessarily need approval from the Hall of Famer. After all, he had just become a first-time All-Star and the driving force in snapping Detroit’s five-season playoff drought, a stretch of futility that included a league-record 28 consecutive losses in the first half of the 2023-24 season. But Cunningham wanted Anthony to know something, as he pointed at the Knicks legend on the way back downcourt.
Here I am.
“I didn’t have a celebration in mind or anything, but I was hyped. It’s Carmelo Anthony right there in front of me,” Cunningham told ESPN earlier this month. “One of my all-time favorite players. I wanted to make sure that he saw that.”
“To be in the arena, the biggest stage in the world. I thought that was a cool moment.”
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Little by little, Cunningham, the 2021 No. 1 draft pick, has been finding more of these moments. There was his game winner against the Atlanta Hawks last November, punctuated by a help-side block at the buzzer. There was his clock-beating 3-pointer on the road against the Miami Heat in March, when he walked down center Bam Adebayo before hitting the shot and told the Miami crowd to put some “respect” on his name.
At 24, Cunningham is still one of the younger members of a Pistons team built around its star and on the rise in a wide-open Eastern Conference. But any chance Detroit has to evolve from upstart to true contender will hinge on how far its dynamic 6-foot-6 guard can take his game. Will that require an MVP-level season in Motown? Cunningham, for his part, isn’t running away from the idea.
“If I can help get this team to where my goal is to get this team this season, all this stuff will be on the way,” Cunningham said. “I’m not shy to say that. I think that’s very possible.”
CUNNINGHAM WAS A finalist for Most Improved Player last season, but it seemed a bit misplaced.
Since the award’s inception in 1986, only Milwaukee Bucks big man Giannis Antetokounmpo in 2017 has gone on to win MVP. Most Improved winners have traditionally been lottery picks who’ve gone from underachiever to major contributor or unheralded players enjoying a breakthrough season.
Cunningham, however, wasn’t exactly eager to join those ranks.
“Most Improved Player was, I think, a great honor to be considered for,” Cunningham said of the award that went to the Hawks’ Dyson Daniels. “It shows whoever improved the most from year to year. It says a lot about how much work you put in.”
“[But] I think of myself as somebody that should be considered at the highest level, and that’s what I work for every day. I wasn’t heartbroken to not win.”
Nor did he bristle when the past several MVPs were named — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid, Antetokounmpo — fully aware of the inference. Cunningham would be the youngest MVP since Derrick Rose in 2011, and the first No. 1 pick to win since LeBron James in 2013. He finished seventh in the final MVP voting last season.
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Cunningham knows the commonality is team success combined with individual stats. Discounting pandemic-shortened seasons in 2019-20 and 2020-21, teams of the past six MVP winners have averaged 58.6 wins. For the Pistons, whose 44 wins last season already matched the franchise’s most since 2007-08, it would take another massive leap for Cunningham to get there. And that would mean the Pistons become true contenders, not just mere upstarts.
“[Winning] Finals MVP, I’d be way happier about that than an MVP,” Cunningham said. “Basketball is a team game. To be the MVP, you have to be valuable to your team. And that can look so many different ways. If you’re the best player in the world, you’re probably going to have the best team in the world.”
Cannen Cunningham, Cade’s older brother by eight years, isn’t surprised that MVP is on the list of Cade’s aspirations. He remembers Cade saying he wanted to be the No. 1 pick, and then later, that he wanted to be the best player in the world.
“He’s not cocky or anything,” Cannen said. “He just has this belief in himself.”
It has benefitted the franchise to date.
The Pistons have invested big into Cunningham, going far beyond the rookie-scale max extension (five years, $269 million) he agreed to in summer 2024. For team owner Tom Gores, the qualities he saw in Cunningham during the organization’s record losing streak in 2023-24 only reinforced that decision.
“When we were at our lowest, the man didn’t blink,” Gores told ESPN. “He continued to work, continued to pat his players on the back. That’s when I knew this guy’s character was something special.
“You learn the most from anyone in life during the tough times. The way I saw him functioning, [behaving] when things were emotional, what he did when we were down.”
Cunningham blossomed last season, partially due to the structure created by team president Trajan Langdon and coach J.B. Bickerstaff. Spacing had been gummed up in Cunningham’s first couple of seasons, so the priority was signing shooters Tim Hardaway Jr. (168 3s) and Malik Beasley (319) to operate while Cunningham commanded the attention of defenses.
But after only one season together, Hardaway signed with the Denver Nuggets last offseason and Beasley is currently under federal investigation for alleged gambling and not rostered. Detroit wasted no time finding a replacement this summer, acquiring sharp-shooting forward Duncan Robinson in a sign-and-trade with Miami on the first day of free agency.
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The Pistons’ young core, meanwhile, complements its point guard in different ways.
Jalen Duren is a rim-running lob threat who vacations and works out with Cunningham in the offseason, and that connection looks intact. Ausar Thompson and Ron Holland are pests on defense and can get out in the open floor. (And Thompson has developed as a secondary playmaker to enable Cunningham to play more off the ball.)
He and his teammates are close in age. He’s a few months older than Jaden Ivey, a few months younger than the longest-tenured Piston, Isaiah Stewart, and two years older than Duren and Thompson.
“We had a [team] event, and the next day was his birthday,” Tobias Harris, Detroit’s oldest player at 33, told ESPN. “I asked him how old he was turning and he said 24. In my mind, I thought he was 28. He’s just so mature, and it translates to on the floor with his leadership. He’s got that dog, that competitive spirit, but he’s also really about it — about the work.”
Up and down the roster, all agree without conflict on the hierarchy, with Cunningham at the top.
“It is a heavy burden, and it’s a burden that you don’t get days off from,” Bickerstaff told ESPN. “When you are that guy, you don’t get to take days off. Because every single day, everybody around you is watching.”
THE LASTING IMAGEfrom the end of Detroit’s breakthrough season? Heartbreak, with Brunson closing out the Pistons on their home floor in the first round, preventing what would’ve been an electric Game 7 inside Madison Square Garden. Bickerstaff won’t watch it, the memory is etched in his mind. Cunningham will catch it in spurts.
“I watched it a couple times,” Cunningham said. “There’s moments where I’ll fast forward when I know it’s something that I don’t want to see coming up, but I think it’s just part of the learning experience.”
The callouses form the character of the team and its leader.
“Even teams that have made big deals to bring in superstar players, you know, they have to go through some stuff,” Bickerstaff said. “To learn from, to find that extra motivation to understand the importance of everything, the details. When you lose a game like that in the playoffs, it burns even more.”
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The Pistons have only had two coaches who’ve lasted longer than four seasons in franchise history (Chuck Daly, Dwane Casey). For Bickerstaff to join that short list, his relationship with Cunningham must be in lockstep — not too dissimilar from what Gilgeous-Alexander has in Oklahoma City with Mark Daigneault or what Stephen Curry has enjoyed for a decade with Steve Kerr.
“Build trust, build respect,” Bickerstaff said. “Our words have to be the same, our emotions have to be the same, our commitments have to be the same in order for both of us to get to where we want to get to.
“But beyond that, he’s such a good dude that you want to have a relationship with him. That’s bigger than basketball, and that’s what I’m trying to build with him.”
Last summer, Bickerstaff challenged his star to prepare for more physicality from defenses, almost predicting what the start of this season would look like. Defenses have indeed trapped Cunningham often throughout the first week of the season, and the intensity has increased. (Cunningham now sports a welt underneath his right eye, courtesy of being whacked by one of the Celtics’ big men in a comeback win in the Pistons’ home opener.)
“Efficiency” has become Cunningham’s next goal, according to Bickerstaff. “The Carmelo Anthonys, the Kevin Durants of the world, you got moves quick enough [that] the double teams can’t get to — because in playoff situations you’re going to see more crowds, more double teams.”
Cunningham also believes he has the size and know-how to defend some of the league’s best. Bickerstaff also wants Cunningham in elite shape.
The expectations are lofty, but they don’t seem impossible on a team that’s increasingly ascending, in a conference that’s asking for a team to challenge the Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers.
“You don’t get put in MVP conversations if your team isn’t winning at a high level, and that’s the important thing for him,” Bickerstaff said. “Everyone knows he’s a superstar. Once you lift an organization [to] that high level, that’s when they start to put you in the MVP category.”
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