NBA playoffs, not awards, drive Pistons star Cade Cunningham after last year's 1st-round exit
The NBA playoffs, not awards, drive Detroit Pistons star Cade Cunningham to chase greatness. A year after Cunningham had a first-round exit in his postseason debut, the point guard is motivated to lead the three-time championship franchise to success it hasn't experienced in nearly two decades. It will mean more to him, though, to at least lift Detroit out of the first round of the playoffs.
DETROIT (AP) — The NBA playoffs , not awards, drive Detroit Pistons star Cade Cunningham to chase greatness. A year after Cunningham had a first-round exit in his postseason debut, the point guard is motivated to lead the three-time championship franchise to success it hasn't experienced in nearly two decades. After falling one game short of the league’s 65-game minimum rule, he won an appeal to be part of the NBA awards voting this season “It means a lot to me,” he said Friday.
It will mean more to him, though, to at least lift Detroit out of the first round of the playoffs. The Pistons will host the winner of the Charlotte-Orlando game in Game 1 of the first round on Sunday night. Detroit hasn't won a playoff series since 2008, when it reached the conference finals for a sixth straight season to end a run that included the 2004 NBA title and coming up one victory short of repeating the next season.
The Pistons were in the playoffs last year for the first time since 2019 and ended a league-record, 15-game postseason losing streak before being eliminated by the New York Knicks in Game 6. Cunningham had chances to make winning plays in the games Detroit lost, and learned painful lessons when he didn't come through. “That was a chip on my shoulder to get better bodywise, skillset wise,” he said.
The 6-foot-6, 220-pound Cunningham added about 10 pounds of muscle in the offseason and said he feels strong staying at a weight that used to make him feel heavy. Pistons coach J. B.