Ask how Cade Cunningham’s season is going for the Detroit Pistons and you might get wildly different answers.
Most fans would see an ascending star who is making an All-Star leap with a better cast around him and has his team at an unexpected 5-7, which would put them in the play-in tournament, the exact type of progress we were hoping to see.
Others see a guy who is still too turnover prone and who collapses in the big moment.
There’s a little truth to both, but whatever negatives you want to pick apart in Cade’s game have been overshadowed by a pleasantly surprising start for the team in which he has averaged 23 points, 8.3 assists and 7.3 rebounds per game.
When it comes to the turnovers, I’d be happy if he just cut out the bad ones, as some TO’s are just part of doing business when you are a high usage guy, ask Luka Doncic, who led the league last season while leading his team to the NBA Finals.
Cunningham has to be better with the ball, especially in clutch time, but he’s a walking triple-double threat who is 6th in the NBA in assists per game, so the good has far outweighed the bad.
That was true again last night, when Cunningham did a great job managing the game, made nice reads and passes to get his teammates good shots and only had a couple of turnovers until late when things did get sloppy.
Part of that’s on Cade, part of that's on the uncalled fouls battering his arms, but the Pistons still walked away with a “W,” so I’ll take it.
Cade Cunningham also walked away from the game with a place in a unique group of players in NBA history.
Cade Cunningham stats: The 3,000, 900, 150 club?
With a bucket last night, Cade Cunningham became just the 6th player in NBA history to record 3,000 points, 900 assists and 150 steals in the first 150 games of their careers.
Kudos to whoever comes up with these weird stat groups that are ultimately meaningless, but this one is interesting when you see who else is in the group with him.
The other five players are LeBron James, Luka Doncic, Allen Iverson, Grant Hill and Isiah Thomas.
That’s four former or current Pistons among guys who were prolific scorers who also set up teammates and got plenty of swipes in the first years of their career.
They also happen to be guys who all turned the ball over quite a lot, which got me curious. Here are their total turnovers in their first 150 games:
-Cade Cunningham: 544
-LeBron James: 512
-Luka Doncic: 586
-Allen Iverson: 560
-Grant Hill: 465
-Isiah Thomas: 554
Huh, so all of these high-usage current and future Hall of Famers also turned the ball over a lot when they first entered the league? Wild, that.