Detroit Pistons: Will Cade Cunningham or Jaden Ivey ever score 50?
Other options are two young guards that have not yet sniffed the 40-point mark, let alone 50. Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey both have career high’s in the 30’s, but have been doing so on inefficient shooting.
For reference, Saddiq Bey attempted 27 shots in his 51-point game while Cade Cunningham took 23 total shots to get his career high of 35 points.
While it is impossible for Cade to hit this benchmark this year due to injury, he does posses some of qualities needed to do it at some point in his career. He has the ball in his hands a lot, can get to his spots, and has shown the ability to get hot.
What worries me about Cade is his free throw attempts, something imperative for big scoring nights. He is still only averaging just over 3.5 free throw attempts per game.
Jaden Ivey is actually strong in that respect, getting to the line at an impressive rate for a rookie. Ivey did score his career high of 30 points on only 14 field goal attempts, mainly do his high free throw rate.
I would give Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey about a equal shot at dropping 50 and it is possible that both will hit that benchmark at some point in their careers.
Rounding out the candidates, and in my opinion the most likely to score 50 in a game this season, is none other than Bojan Bogdanovic.
Other than Saddiq Bey, Bogdanovic is the only Piston on the roster to have been close to this before, scoring 48 in game with the Utah Jazz. He also scored 44 in 2016 as a member of the Brooklyn Nets.
We’ve seen it out of Bogdanovic already this season. He can get hot, score in bunches, and it doesn’t matter if you have your hand up.
Back in December, Bojan scored 38 against the Lakers on six made threes. Mix in a couple more shot attempts or free throws, and we are really close to that 50 number.
Bogdanovic is having his best scoring season of his career with 21.2 points per game and on many nights is the most consistent player on the Detroit Pistons roster.
A 50-point game from Bojan Bogdanovic would be a bright light in a relatively grim season for Pistons fans. I know many look back fondly on Blake Griffin’s night versus the 76ers and Saddiq’s in Orlando.
All fans would take improved team offensive numbers any day of the week. We are hungry for that success, but a 50-point individual performance to wind down this season might be able to tide us over.
C’mon Bogey, do it for the fans.