{"id":121054,"date":"2025-01-30T20:26:44","date_gmt":"2025-01-31T01:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=121054"},"modified":"2025-01-30T20:26:44","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T01:26:44","slug":"pistons-all-star-cade-cunningham-bucks-trend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/30\/pistons-all-star-cade-cunningham-bucks-trend\/","title":{"rendered":"Pistons No. 1 Pick Bucks Trend With All-Star Selection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time this decade, the Detroit Pistons have a player who&#8217;s been voted as an All-Star.<\/p>\n<p>Among the 2025 NBA All-Star reserves being announced on Thursday was de facto captain <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/cunnica01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cade Cunningham<\/a>. With the Pistons as competitive as they&#8217;ve been in years, the 2021 No. 1 pick isn&#8217;t just flash. During his career season, he&#8217;s shown that he has plenty of substance to his game. As a result, Detroit is eyeing the playoffs for the first time in a long time.<\/p>\n<h2>Pistons&#8217; Cade Cunningham Bucks Trend With All-Star Selection<\/h2>\n<p>Cunningham&#8217;s career likely didn&#8217;t kick off how he wanted it to though.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Making his 1st <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NBAAllStar?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#NBAAllStar<\/a> appearance&#8230; Cade Cunningham of the <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DetroitPistons?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@DetroitPistons<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Drafted as the 1st pick in 2021 out of Oklahoma State, Cade is averaging 25.0 PPG, 6.4 RPG and 9.3 APG for the Pistons this season. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/vD883mJMTH\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/vD883mJMTH<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 #NBAAllStar (@NBAAllStar) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBAAllStar\/status\/1885109848288678058?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 30, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>As a rookie, he definitely looked like one of the best players in his class. It&#8217;s not a guarantee that prospects who were highly touted in high school live up to expectations. However, Cunningham &#8211;the consensus No. 1 high school &#8211;looked like he was bucking the trend. Instead of following up his rookie campaign with fireworks, he found himself sidelined for the majority of the season due to a shin fracture.<\/p>\n<h3>The Comeback<\/h3>\n<p>Though most guards seem to be hyper-fixated on the way they can impact the game from beyond the arc, Cunningham consistently uses his 6-foot-6 and 220-pound frame to cut into the teeth of the defense. In a general sense, he could stand to be more efficient around the rim. Nonetheless, he&#8217;s among the savviest scorers when he gets in the paint.<\/p>\n<p>His combination of skill and physical tools has been a winning formula for both him and the Pistons. This season, Cunningham has averaged career-highs of 25.0 points, 9.3 assists, 6.4 rebounds, and 0.8 blocks per game. He&#8217;s also shooting a career-high 36.0 percent from three, which could be a nod to shooting coach Fred Vinson. His ability to put the Pistons on his back on a near nightly basis is the biggest reason they&#8217;re in playoff contention.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YFTXGTVkEBU?si=csALZaA_Mpa40cH_\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The Pistons&#8217; last All-Star, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/griffbl01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Blake Griffin<\/a>, also had an all-around impact.<\/p>\n<p>However, the combo forward was on the downside of his career after suffering a knee injury. Cunningham, now as healthy as he&#8217;s ever been, is well on his way to accomplishing what Griffin did in Detroit and more. Upon cementing himself not just as Detroit&#8217;s keystone but a player who contributes to winning, the Dallas native will be in line for a number of individual accolades, All-Star selections included.<\/p>\n<p>How far the Pistons go goes beyond what Cunningham can bring alone though. No player &#8211;be it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jordami01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Jordan<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bryanko01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kobe Bryant<\/a>, or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a> &#8211;has won a championship by himself.<\/p>\n<div class=\"modal-image-setImageMetadata\">\n<p class=\"ng-binding\">\u00a9 Brad Penner-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time this decade, the Detroit Pistons have a player who&#8217;s been voted as an All-Star. Among the 2025 NBA All-Star reserves being announced on Thursday was de facto captain Cade Cunningham. With the Pistons as competitive as they&#8217;ve been in years, the 2021 No. 1 pick isn&#8217;t just flash. During his career [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":121098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_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":[10,1608,62,3],"tags":[226,3965,639],"class_list":["post-121054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pistons","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","tag-blake-griffin","tag-cade-cunningham","tag-nba-all-star"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121054","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\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121054"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121102,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121054\/revisions\/121102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}