The Detroit Pistons got the devastating news yesterday that Cade Cunningham’s injury is worse than originally expected and he may have to miss extended time.
This is a low point for a franchise that had started the season 3-14 anyway, getting beaten in a manner we haven’t seen since the “Process” Sixers.
Not only is Cade Cunningham potentially out for the season, but the Pistons will also be without Isaiah Stewart for at least a few more weeks and Saddiq Bey is now out with an ankle injury.
Obviously, fans are concerned about Cade Cunningham’s health and wish him a speedy recovery, but if it takes the whole season for him to get back to100 percent, so be it.
He is the guy the team is building around, so the Pistons need to be thinking long term here, so I won’t be surprised when it is announced that he is having season-ending surgery on his fractured shin.
This is really the nightmare scenario for a few reasons.
Detroit Pistons: Is Cade Cunningham out for the season? If so, pack it in.
At the very least, Cade Cunningham will be out for a long time, but I expect his season is likely over given the history of this particular injury.
If that is the case, then the Pistons season is over as well, as they don’t have nearly enough depth to withstand the loss of their best player.
Let’s face it, they weren’t winning games with him either, but we did expect continued improvement throughout the season and that this team might actually be playing well by the end of it.
We also knew that the Pistons would likely commit to tanking at some point, but I was hoping that would be well into the future, not less than 25 percent into the season.
This is going to be a LONG season for Pistons’ fans, who have already suffered though winning just 63 games in the last three seasons combined.
Buckle in, because Detroit is going to be lucky to win 20 games this season without Cade. Yes, they will very likely have maximum 14 percent odds to get Victor Wembanyama, but we are going to have to suffer through another 65 games before even getting that minuscule amount of hope.
This was really the worst-case scenario, but not just because of this season.
Detroit Pistons: A season of lost development without Cade Cunningham
Most fans understood that the Detroit Pistons were not going to be a contender this season, but we were all looking forward to the continued development of Cade Cunningham and the other young players.
Cade is now likely to spend most or all of it watching from the bench, so has barely even gotten a chance to improve this season.
Then there is the loss of the chemistry that he was going to start building with guys like Jaden Ivey and Jalen Duren, which is probably the worst part of all of this because it doesn’t just affect this season.
This will carry over into next year, as these young players still won’t have played much time together and will basically be starting from scratch again.
Yes, Jaden Ivey will get more time on the ball, and will have a better chance to win Rookie of the Year because of it, but the future of the team revolves around this backcourt and they barely even got a chance to play together.
We were all willing to suffer through the losses because of the potential and future of this backcourt, but now that could all be delayed another season.
Detroit Pistons: What to do with the veterans?
The Detroit Pistons have several players in Alec Burks, Bojan Bogdanovic and Nerlens Noel who could potentially be traded at some point.
There was a good chance that one or more of these guys was going to be moved anyway, as Burks and Noel are essentially on expiring deals and could net some assets at the trade deadline.
But the truth is that both Burks and Noel are the types of veterans a young team needs and are on reasonable contracts, so there was also a possibility that this team was going to start playing better at full strength, which might have led to the Pistons keeping them around.
Same for Bojan Bogdanovic, who has had a red-hot start to the season, which will make him one of the hottest trade targets on the market.
The shame is that we never even got to see how these guys really fit with Cade Cunningham or see this roster at full strength. I don’t think they were making the playoffs either way, but it would have been nice to at least see how they play together and how all of the pieces fit.
Trading these guys now would be selling blindly, as Detroit doesn’t even know what they have in this roster. Of course, they could have all been traded anyway, but at least we’d have more data about what worked and what didn’t.
This also applies to coach Casey, who now gets another free pass without ever having to answer for how bad this team has been.
Instead the franchise is stuck in limbo, with no chance to develop its core or evaluate the role players, which is pretty much the worst-case scenario for the Detroit Pistons.