Making the NBA playoffs, or even the play-in tournament, is a lot harder than many people realize, including the Detroit Pistons star rookie, Cade Cunningham. This past season served as a valuable lesson for him, as well as the other young players.
Cade Cunningham had won a lot of games as a player before coming to Detroit. His high school team at Montverde Academy won the national championship his senior year, and, in his only season at Oklahoma State, the Cowboys beat eventual NCAA champion Baylor and made the finals of the Big 12 tournament, despite being heavy underdogs.
After being the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, Cunningham stated one of his goals was for the Pistons to make the playoffs this year. That did not happen, not even close.
Detroit’s 23-59 record was the third-worst in the league. They finished 20 games behind the Charlotte Hornets, who finished 10th in the Eastern Conference for the final play-in tournament berth.
At his post-season availability, Cunningham admitted how making the NBA playoffs was a lot more difficult than he imaged (h/t Omari Sankofa II)
"“It’s definitely not easy to win in this league. Every night you have to be locked in. Your whole team has to be locked in. You have to take every possession seriously,” said Cunningham. “I talked to coach Casey about it, there’s so many games where you’re like that team stole that game from us. And you look back, there are so many games stolen from you that you’re behind and it’s tough to make that up.“Next season, I want to practice that desperation every night of making the best play possible … I said we were going to make the playoffs this year. I didn’t realize how hard it would be (emphasis mine).”"
On the face of it, making the NBA playoffs should not be that hard. Counting the play-in, 10 out of 15 teams in each conference are still alive once the regular season is over. Looking at it from afar, you could see why Cunningham thought Detroit could go up and snag a post-season berth.
But winning NBA games are hard. Even if you are lucky enough to have a star or two sitting when you play a team (which Detroit seemed to get a lot, as opponents thought it was a good time to give their big names a blow), even the backups are still pretty good, and they play extra hard, wanting to show the coach they should get more minutes.
This is also a league that has no sympathy for the other team’s problems. When the Pistons roster was basically wiped out due to COVID-19 in December/early January, you did not see the other team backing of,f or playing its bench because the poor Pistons had to go mostly with G-Leaguers. Wins are too prized in the NBA, get them any way you can.
And no one wants to hear excuses.
Yes, the Pistons had a lot of injuries to key players, but the Denver Nuggets basically went the whole season without 2 of its top 3 players and finished as the No. 6 seed in the West. Detroit stumbled out of the blocks, starting 5-28. Boston and Toronto were barely in the play-in at the start of 2022, and went on big winning streaks to make the playoffs.
If someone is hurt, next in line has to step up, and produce.
The Pistons did lose a lot of close games, anyone who watched saw a lot of heartbreakers. However, as the saying goes, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Despite Cunningham playing at a Rookie of the Year level once he was healthy, the improvement of Saddiq Bey, Killian Hayes and Isaiah Stewart, the emergence of Marvin Bagley III as a legitimate lob threat late in the season, the Pistons record was basically exactly the same as the year before.
Where it counts, wins and losses, there was no real improvement (on a percentage basis, as in 2021 the season was just 72 games).
Cunningham seems to get it. Winning, particularly winning enough to make the playoffs, is hard.
You have to be ready to play every night. It might be late January in Portland and your body aches from the grind and you saw film and the team your playing is no great shakes, no reason to get motivated, and the playoffs are still months away. But you have to show up and play your100-percent best, or it will be a loss and, enough of those, and you can forget the playoffs.
Cunningham is not used to losing and he does not like it. Bey won an NCAA title at Villanova. Jerami Grant and Kelly Olynyk came from teams that went far in the NBA playoffs. There are players surrounding him who know what it takes to win.
In the standings, the Pistons were bad last year and no better this season. As teams like Cleveland, Chicago and Memphis showed this year, there can be major improvement in a team’s record in just one year.
Cade Cunningham says he is ready to make the commitment to have Detroit be one of those type of teams, and now that he realizes what it takes.