Cade Cunningham symbolically slams door in face of previous era

Nearly two decades passed between when the Detroit Pistons won a playoff game in 2008 and finally did again last season, but Cade Cunningham is making it known that those days are over. 

The Pistons were either mediocre or flat-out bad in the post Goin’ to Work era, which was symbolized by Andre Drummond, who was the face of the Pistons for 7+ years. 

In fairness to Drummond, the Pistons did a terrible job building around him and never should have been trying in the first place, as he was a one-dimensional center without the requisite skills to thrive in the modern game. 

Drummond got passed by and so did the Pistons, who kept leaning into players who couldn’t shoot and eventually had to just give Drummond away, which was a shame, as Dre was a very good player for Detroit, he just wasn’t THAT guy. 

Cade Cunningham is. 

Cade Cunningham dunks in face of previous face of the team 

It was almost a symbolic funeral for the end of the old, mediocre Pistons last night as Cade Cunningham emphatically dunked on Andre Drummond in a key moment in the game. 

The Pistons were up just two on Drummond’s 76ers with less than two minutes in the game, when Cade Cunningham did this: 

He not only posterized Drummond, but picked up a foul along the way, which helped to seal the game for the Pistons and put an exclamation point on the Cunningham era in Detroit. 

I actually felt bad for Drummond, who had a good game, but this has been the story of his career in some ways, as he’s had to suffer the blame for things that were not really his fault. He wasn’t the one who got burned on the perimeter, he wasn’t the one sitting on the bench with load management while the backup did his job for him. 

Drummond challenged the shot and got dunked on, and symbolically it felt like the final nail in the coffin of the Drummond era in Detroit. 

I always felt Drummond got a raw deal in Detroit, similar to Tobias Harris in Philly, as fans judged them more by their paycheck than their relative contributions on the court. Both guys were paid more than they should have been, but what do you want them to do, give back the money? 

This isn’t so much about dunking on Drummond but putting an end to the era that he represented. It’s over now, so you can stop booing Dre and instead be happy that the Pistons finally got a player in the right position to be the face of the team and eventually the league.