Cade Cunningham makes leap on KIA Rookie Ladder, eyes top spot

Cade Cunningham of the Detroit Pistons has been struggling mightily with his shot of late.

Since going 5-of-11 from 3-point range against the Kings, Cade has hit just nine of his last 38 shots from long range in the five games that followed for an awful 23 percent.

This doesn’t concern me, to be honest, as he is getting good looks and just not knocking them down. Eventually he will, as a lot of young guards have a hard time adjusting to the NBA 3-point line and the speed of defenders closing out. Cunningham feels tantalizingly close to having a breakout game shooting the ball, and I like his chances tonight against the Clippers.

With all of this bad shooting, you might be surprised that Cunningham made a leap on the most recent edition of the KIA Rookie Ladder, which is ESPN’s weekly ranking of rookies in the NBA.

Cade Cunningham’s all-around game is getting noticed

Cunningham jumped from number five to number three this week even though he did not shoot the ball well.

The reason is that he does a whole lot of other things well, including rebounding and setting up teammates.

Cunningham is averaging 6.2 rebounds per game, which is 10th in the NBA among guards. He is also getting 4.9 assists and is the catalyst of the Pistons’ offense.

The problem is that his teammates usually miss the wide-open shots he creates, which has led to him averaging 10.2 potential assists per game. Cade could easily be averaging 10 assists per game on a good shooting team, and if he was, he’d be a lock for Rookie of the Year.

Cade Cunningham had his first triple double last week and was very close to adding another one against the Bucks.

Right now his shots are not falling, but once they are, Cunningham is going to be in elite company when it comes to all-around numbers, as he is already putting up big stats in just about every category except scoring.

With Scottie Barnes slowing down and Evan Mobley out with injury, Cunningham could take over the top spot with a strong week, starting tonight against the Clippers.