It’s only preseason but someone forgot to tell Cade Cunningham, who already looks like an MVP candidate in midseason form after two dominant performances.
Cunningham has scored 46 points and added nine rebounds, 10 assists and four steals in just 38 minutes in two preseason games so far.
Cunningham looks to have a new level of confidence and aggression, as if he has figured out, he’s the best player on the court most of the time and that he can take over at will.
There have been two things that stand out to me about Cade’s performance so far.
Cade Cunningham is a true 3-level scorer
Cunningham has filled it up from all over the court in the first two games, scoring from all three levels and showing a versatile bag in the process.
He’s scored on pull-up and catch-and- shoot 3’s, hitting 50 percent of them so far. We’ve seen him use crafty pace to get into the mid-range near the free-throw line and on the baseline and we’ve seen him knock down floaters with both hands.
Cunningham was dominant in the mid-range last year, but was a mediocre 3-point shooter and was bad at the rim, so if we see an uptick in long-range and at-the-rim shooting, Cunningham is going to average closer to 30 a game this season and put himself firmly in the MVP discussion.
When you look at last year’s MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the biggest difference between him and Cade is that SGA knocks down a high percentage of the bunnies in the lane and Cade doesn’t. That’s the final step for Cunningham and it looks like he is getting there.
The free-throw line is the difference for Cunningham
The other big difference between Cade and the MVP is that the latter gets to the line a lot more often, and once that starts happening for Cunningham, he’s going to be impossible to stop.
He got to the line eight times last night and made all of them. Cunningham only averaged 5.3 free-throw attempts last season, while SGA shot 8.8, so Cunningham has a chance to tack on 3-4 extra points per game just by getting to the line.
A lot of this has been that Cunningham doesn’t get a great whistle, which will hopefully change now that he’s an All-NBA player who is more known to the refs. But it’s something worth monitoring, as JB Bickerstaff said, the Pistons need a better relationship with the refs and that starts with Cunningham.
But if he starts getting the calls he was getting last night, his scoring average is going to tick up, and he’ll be even more difficult to defend.
It’s been nothing but positive for Cade so far in the preseason and he looks like he’s on his way to making another leap that could put him in the top five of the MVP voting.