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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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San Antonio Spurs superstar center Victor Wembanyama had a confident reply when asked about his historic performance during a 125-92 blowout win over the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday night.

Speaking to reporters after the game, Wembanyama said, “We needed to make a statement in our locker room. I felt like I needed to make a statement to my teammates. It’s also just the beginning because there’s so much more I want to add to my game.”

Wemby led all scorers in the game with 40 points on 15-of-21 shooting to go along with 15 rebounds and three blocks. Per ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, Wembanyama was the first player since at least the 1977-78 season to finish a game with 40 or more points, 15 or more rebounds, no turnovers and a shooting percentage of 70 percent or better.

The 21-year-old big man took the NBA by storm during the 2023-24 season, winning NBA Rookie of the Year honors and finishing second in the NBA Defensive Player of the Year voting.

Last season, he earned his first All-Star selection and was well on his way to winning DPOY when he was ruled out for the remainder of the campaign due to a blood clot in his shoulder.

On Wednesday night, Wembanyama reflected on coming back from a potentially dangerous situation, telling reporters:

“[I was] much more in control of myself. The mind, I’m not worried about [that] because I saw what it’s like to be confronted with potentially losing a lot, whether it’s your career or your health. So I’m not taking this for granted anymore. The body? I’m having more fun now that I’m not struggling to move as much. I know I still need to get better, and I’m still going to get better.”

The Mavs had no answers for the 7’4″ superstar, as starting bigs Anthony Davis and Dereck Lively II were minus-24 and minus-23 on the night, respectively.

Wemby’s dominance also spoiled the debut of Cooper Flagg, who was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA draft out of Duke.

Flagg had a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds, but he shot just 4-of-13 from the field and committed three turnovers, while posting a team-worst mark of minus-29.

With Flagg joining an established core of veterans including Davis, Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson, there was some thought that the Mavs would be a team to be reckoned with this season.

That could still be the case at some point, especially since Irving is going to return eventually from a torn ACL suffered back in March.

However, on Wednesday, the Spurs looked like the team poised to take the next step and contend for one of the top playoff seeds in the stacked Western Conference.

Provided Wembanyama maintains his level of play and stays healthy, the Spurs figure to be a problem for nearly every team they cross paths with.

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The Tennessee Titans fired head coach Brian Callahan on Monday and installed and promoted senior offensive assistant Mike McCoy to interim head coach, though the team has begun the process of identifying a successor.

Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reported Sunday, “Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the latest search is in the ‘beginning stages.’ No outside search firm will be used. Instead, the search will be led by president of football operations Chad Brinker and general manager Mike Borgonzi. The team intends to conduct, we’re told, an extremely calculated process.”

McCoy’s first crack at interim duties didn’t go terribly well, as the Titans lost 31-13 to the New England Patriots on Sunday, dropping to 1-6 this season. He was 27-37 in his time coaching the then-San Diego Chargers between 2013-16.

“What Mike brings right now is experience, leadership,” Borgonzi told reporters last week. “He has been a head coach. He’s a former quarterback who’s had some years in the NFL as a player and has been around NFL quarterbacks like Philip Rivers, Peyton Manning, and he was with Trevor Lawrence last year.”

His “résumé” as a head coach was certainly better than Callahan’s, who went 4-19 in parts of two seasons leading the Titans.

“We just felt like this was the right time to make a change,” Brinker told reporters after Callahan was fired. “We were looking for growth in this football team, and that’s what this is about right now. We’re not seeing enough growth from this football team.”

The Titans will be an interesting job opening. On one hand, they have an intriguing young quarterback in Cam Ward, the top overall pick in the 2025 NFL draft. He’s shown flashes of brilliance but has also suffered from bouts of inconsistency, throwing for 1,356 yards, four touchdowns and five interceptions in seven games, completing just 57.6 percent of his passes.

But the Titans haven’t surrounded him with much talent, and it’s very clear the organization is in the very early stages of a full rebuild. Getting the most out of Ward—who is enduring a rough rookie season and already experiencing a midseason coaching change—will be the top priority for the team’s next head coach.

Given the lack of talent elsewhere, however, it won’t be the sexiest opening for high-profile candidates.

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CALGARY — The debate over Dustin Wolfâ€s workload wonâ€t just be a coaching decision. Itâ€ll be a storyline that could very well define the Calgary Flames†season.

And it may start as early as Game 2.

Asked if heâ€d consider starting Wolf on back-to-back nights to open the season in Edmonton and Vancouver, Ryan Huska didnâ€t say no.

“That is putting me on the spot,†he said, smiling, before reverting to the easy out.Â

“Heâ€s going to start the first game, I will tell you that.â€

Well within his rights to dance around it now, heâ€ll indeed be on the spot Thursday morning when his decision will say plenty about how the Flames will move ahead with an unproven backup on their roster.

The departure of Dan Vladar in the off-season will prompt a seismic shift in teamâ€s goaltending philosophy as it pertains to scheduled starts.

Wolfâ€s ascension to the franchiseâ€s undisputed starter late last season ended a first-half approach in which Vladar shielded the rookie from the toughest starts.

Clearly the roles will be reversed now, as the capabilities of 28-year-old AHL journeyman Devin Cooley are very much unknown.

With just six NHL starts to his credit, a shaky second half in the AHL last season and an unimpressive pre-season, would it be prudent to put Cooley in against the same Vancouver team that scored on three of seven shots against him last week?

Wolf is well-rested, and the brutal schedule the Flames are facing this month requires putting your best foot forward right out of the gate.

In fact, Wolf should be tapped to start the first three games over just three-and-a-half days, as the home opener goes Saturday against the St. Louis Blues at 2 p.m. MT / 4 p.m. ET (Sportsnet, Sportsnet+).

Yes, itâ€s a compact schedule due to the Olympics, and the importance of ensuring the Flames†coveted Calder finalist isnâ€t overworked is important.

But Wolf handled workloads like these throughout his dominant runs as perennial goalie-of-the-year candidate in the WHL and AHL.

Finding the sweet spot that will limit his starts to somewhere under 65 is going to be closely monitored as the Flames†success this season will unquestionably be linked to his performance.

“I think a lot of it this year is going to be how Dustin is feeling,†said Flames senior goaltending coach, Jordan Sigalet, who hinted even Game 2â€s decision will be a gut call.

“Itâ€s probably easier to get away with playing back-to-backs early in the season, when the guys are fresh.

“You ask Dustin, heâ€d want to play all 82, but youâ€ve got to be careful. Itâ€s his second year, and heâ€s not a big guy, so thereâ€s a little more wear and tear on him.â€

Much has been made about Wolfâ€s six-foot, 166-pound frame, but it was durable enough to post a 19-8-2 record down the stretch last year when games mattered most.

When you pay for a Ferrari, you drive it.

Besides, heâ€ll likely have three weeks off in February to regenerate.

“I do feel like he can handle a heavy workload,†said Huska, who gave Wolf 53 starts last year, leading to a seven-year, $52.5-million extension for the 24-year-old Californian.

“That doesnâ€t mean heâ€s going to play 76 games this year, but Iâ€m not afraid to go back to him.

“We have to make sure we manage his time off the ice and his rest. If heâ€s having multiple starts along the way based on our schedule, there are days he wonâ€t practice and thatâ€s something we have to do to make sure he stays sharp.â€

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Fair enough. The EBUG will get plenty of practice reps with the lads.

But how many starts Cooley gets will depend on his performance as much as how Wolf is feeling.

Meanwhile, KHL signing Ivan Prosvetov will be working with Wranglers goalie whisperer Mackenzie Skapski, adding structure to his large, athletic frame in case Cooley falters.

“The best thing for Devin to do is make sure when he gets his opportunity heâ€s competitive and gives us a chance to win all the time, and that really shows his partner, ‘Iâ€ve got your back. Iâ€m going to go in and Iâ€m going to win games for you guys,â€â€ said Huska, whose club has eight back-to-backs on the schedule this year.

“Thatâ€s what we need from Devin to allow Dustin the time heâ€s going to need this year.â€

To be fair, Cooley was an AHL all-star last season, posting a 17-6 record, 1.99 goals-against average and .937 save percentage before a January concussion derailed his season. He has the structure, size (six-foot-five) and athleticism to give Sigalet reason to believe heâ€s ready.

“You obviously wanted more out of him in camp but there was a lot of pressure on him while they battled, but we still believe in his talent,†said Sigalet of the 28-year-old backup who may need to post at least a .500 record if the Flames are going to make the playoffs.

“You look back to what he did in the first half and hope he gets back to that.â€

Some argue it would be best to get Cooley a start early (like Game 2) to calm his nerves and boost his confidence.

That could also backfire on him, and more importantly, on the team.

His best entry to the season would be Game 5 in Utah next Wednesday, which is the second half of another back-to-back that starts with Vegas in Calgary the night prior.

A solid start that night by the affable Cooley would go a long way towards easing the pressure on Wolf, and on an organization that may have its playoff fate determined by a backup.

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