The Detroit Pistons lost their 9th game in a row last night, have the worst record in the league and rookie Cade Cunningham is sick of it.
One of the hardest things for star rookies who go to rebuilding teams is the losing. Some of these guys come into the league barely having tasted defeat and most top picks have never been on a bad team going back to when they were five years old.
The real downside to “tanking” while you rebuild is that your team doesn’t get to experience much winning, which can weigh on young players not used to defeat.
Such is the case with Cade Cunningham, who has been visibly upset the last few games even though he has been amazing individually.
This is what he had to say after last night’s loss to the Thunder:
Cunningham: "The most important thing is to keep that hate of losing. You can't get used to it. I'm not going to let losing games affect my mindset of how much I hate losing."
— Offseason O (@omarisankofa) December 7, 2021
Things might be grim for the rebuilding Pistons right now, but this is exactly what you want to hear out of your team leader and future superstar.
The Detroit Pistons and Cade Cunningham don’t want to get used to losing
Like I said, the last thing you want is for your young players to get down and start hanging their heads after defeats.
This didn’t happen much last season, as the Pistons were supposed to be bad and they were more competitive behind an older roster that had more veterans contributing.
Without those veterans (yes, even Mason Plumlee who was sneaky good last season) the team is left with a starting lineup with three 20-year-olds, a 22-year-old and Jerami Grant.
You won’t find any competitive teams running out a lineup that young, so it is not surprising at all that they have the worst record in the NBA.
I do think some fans’ expectations were a bit off for this season, which is clearly year two of a complete overhaul and one for which Troy Weaver had very little money to spend on a bench.
But that doesn’t mean that the young Pistons should accept defeat or just lay down, so I am glad to hear Cade Cunningham speak up and talk about how much he hates to lose.
I know it’s hard to preach patience, as most of us have been waiting for over a decade for this team to be good, but patience is exactly what it is going to take for fans.
But the team needs to play with more competitive fire for a full 48 minutes, take pride in working to get better in practice and keep that hatred for losing alive.
Hopefully Cade’s words will light that fire under his team and they will start winning some games soon. I think they will because Cade is not going to allow anything else.