Cade Cunningham's collapsed lung puts awards eligibility, Pistons' claim to top seed at risk
It seemed so innocuous at the moment: just a bit of backcourt pressure early in a sleepy mid-March game between two teams on diametrically opposed ends of the Eastern Conference standings. Cade Cunningham forces Tre Johnson to turn — Job No. 1 for any pressing defender trying to make a ball-handler uncomfortable.
Johnson loses the ball and his balance as he tries to spin off Cunningham into open space; both players dive for the loose ball. Cunningham’s first to the floor: quicker, more assertive, more physical in pursuit of possession. But also, more vulnerable.
Cade Cunningham won’t return tonight due to back spasms. This is the play that took him out pic. twitter.
com/Mj5ZHcWL7G — Pistons Talk (@Pistons__Talk) March 17, 2026 What looked at first like just an uncomfortable collision, the Wizards rookie landing hard on the Pistons superstar’s back before everybody got back up and kept it pushing, soon landed Cunningham in the Pistons locker room. And what looked at first like back spasms was revealed on Thursday to be something significantly more serious: a left lung pneumothorax , or collapsed lung , that will reportedly cost Detroit’s All-NBA table-setter an “extended period of time. ” How long “extended” might mean, at this stage, remains unclear.
The Pistons’ official statement on the injury says the team will re-evaluate Cunningham in two weeks. The average time lost for an NBA player who suffers a collapsed lung, according to injury expert Jeff Stotts of In Street Clothes , is 26 days. “Average,” of course, means that some returns happen more quickly than that.
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