{"id":111280,"date":"2024-12-09T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T17:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=111280"},"modified":"2024-12-09T12:00:06","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T17:00:06","slug":"cade-cunninghams-believes-he-is-all-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/12\/09\/cade-cunninghams-believes-he-is-all-star\/","title":{"rendered":"Cade Cunningham\u2019s Season Has Him Believing He Is An All-Star"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now in his fourth NBA season, Detroit Pistons<\/a> guard Cade Cunningham<\/a> is putting up career-best averages pretty much across the board. Not just that, but it has come with much-improved play by the team this season. Yes, they are still five games under .500 at 10-15, but keep in mind how bad 2023-24 was for them. They went an atrocious 14-68 and also experienced a 28-game losing streak, longest in NBA history within a single season.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s improved play along with Cunningham\u2019s leads the 23-year-old to believe that he should be an All-Star.<\/p>\n

Cade Cunningham\u2019s Season Has Him Believing He Is An All-Star<\/h2>\n

Cunningham Believes He Has Played Like An All-Star<\/h3>\n

In the Pistons most recent game, a 120-111 win over the New York Knicks<\/a> on Saturday, Cunningham finished with a triple-double. He totaled 29 points to go along with 10 rebounds and 15 assists. It was the 2021 first overall pick\u2019s fifth triple-double in his 21 outings this season. Cunningham recorded just two triple-doubles over his first three seasons. Earlier this season, he became just the second Pistons player ever<\/a> to have three-straight triple doubles, the first being Grant Hill<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking at his locker after Saturday\u2019s outing, he was asked if he thought he should be an All-Star. Cunningham said<\/a>,<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe I am. Whenever I\u2019m on the court every night, I feel like I\u2019m the best player. I try to do whatever it takes to help my team win, and my teammates have made me look great this year. I\u2019m just trying to help my team win and we\u2019ll see what happens with it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cunningham\u2019s numbers through his first 21 appearances certainly suggest that an All-Star nod isn\u2019t far-fetched. On the season, the 6-foot-6 guard is averaging 23.9 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 9.4 assists (all career-highs). He is also shooting career-bests from the field (45.5%) and from three-point territory (39.3%).<\/p>\n

A Lot Of Competition With Guards In The Eastern Conference<\/h3>\n

While the Eastern Conference has been seen as the lesser of the two conferences this season, that doesn\u2019t mean that Cunningham doesn\u2019t have competition at the guard position. Some names who are certainly challenging Cunningham to be named an All-Star in the East as a guard include Jalen Brunson<\/a>, Trae Young<\/a>, Derrick White<\/a>, LaMelo Ball<\/a>, Damian Lillard<\/a>, Donovan Mitchell<\/a>, Darius Garland<\/a>, and Tyler Herro<\/a>. If Tyrese Haliburton<\/a> and Tyrese Maxey<\/a> begin shooting the ball better, they can be considered as well.<\/p>\n

The two surefire All-Stars in that group seem to be Mitchell and Brunson. White and Garland have put up lesser numbers than Cunningham but are on the teams with the two best records. Young is averaging the most assists per game in a season in decades. Ball is third in the league in scoring averaging 31.1 points, although he is currently out with a left calf strain<\/a>. Lillard has shot the ball better in his second year with the Milwaukee Bucks<\/a> as the team has played much better after a very slow start.<\/p>\n

So Cunningham is facing a lot of competition for one of those All-Star slots. He definitely has put his name firmly in the hat though due to his play on the court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now in his fourth NBA season, Detroit Pistons guard Cade Cunningham is putting up career-best averages pretty much across the board. Not just that, but it has come with much-improved play by the team this season. Yes, they are still five games under .500 at 10-15, but keep in mind how bad 2023-24 was for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":111321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,10,62,3],"tags":[3965,1937,1090,900,1417,823,639],"class_list":["post-111280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-pistons","category-nba","category-news","tag-cade-cunningham","tag-darius-garland","tag-derrick-white","tag-donovan-mitchell","tag-jalen-brunson","tag-lamelo-ball","tag-nba-all-star"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111280"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111322,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111280\/revisions\/111322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}