Cade Cunningham on 23-game skid: ‘There’s nowhere to hide’
The Detroit Pistons got off to a 2-1 start to begin the 2023-24 NBA season, but have not yet win a game since, losing 23 straight games over a span of 50 days. Star guard Cade Cunningham, who’s having the best season of his career, recently voiced his frustration once yet regarding this cataclysmic stretch.
“We all hate where it’s gotten,” Cunningham said over the weekend to Omari Sankofa II of the Detroit Free Press. “We can’t believe that it’s gotten to this point. But it is what it is. We gotta fight through it. That’s one of the main things that I’ve been trying to challenge myself with, is fight through it every day, through bumps, bruises. I don’t want to allow that to take me away from it.
“I know how hard it is for the group. For everybody, we just need all hands on board. I’ve been trying to personally take that on and just weather the storm. It’s hard, but I don’t want to hide from it. There’s nowhere to hide.”
Cunningham, 22, is averaging 21.4 points and seven assists on 42.2 percent shooting and 31.5 percent from 3-point range. Even though the Pistons possess many high-level athletes, Cunningham has not had much space to operate as a lead creator.
According to dunksandthrees.com, the Pistons have the NBA’s worst adjusted NET Rating–which factors in strength of schedule–with a minus-9.1 NET. They have faced the fifth-hardest schedule with the second-most difficult schedule of opposing defenses, but have still not been able to find any sort of rhythm offensively or knock down open looks that opponents are willingly affording them.
“I have a lot of responsibility with the ball in my hands, so with that, a lot of responsibility is on me for our flow and everything,” Cunningham said. “Because of that, I have no choice but to make sure everybody knows that I’m with them.
“We can’t get broke by this. We’ve all been through terrible things in our lives, and losing basketball games, this is the worst thing that all of us have ever been through basketball-wise. We gotta stay together and keep our spirits up. That’s what I try to bring every day.”
It has not helped that Detroit’s dealt with multiple key injuries this season; Jalen Duren‘s been sidelined since Dec. 6 with an ankle injury while Bojan Bogdanovic–its best shooter–missed the team’s first 19 games with a calf injury. Veterans Joe Harris and Monte Morris have also missed most of the season with shoulder and quad injuries, respectively.
The Pistons are on the brink of tying the NBA single-season record for the longest losing streak of 26 games, held by the Cleveland Cavaliers (2010-11) and Philadelphia 76ers.
“It’s tough to get that one (win),” Pistons rookie Ausar Thompson said this weekend, according to James Edwards III of The Athletic. “Sometimes you’ll be in the game and thinking about the losing streak and it causes you to do a little extra or just do something you wouldn’t normally do: panic a little bit. We’ve got to limit that and go into each game as a game. We’re saying that’s the goal, but we have to see it through.”
Over the next two weeks, it will have games against the Atlanta Hawks, Utah Jazz, Brooklyn Nets, Boston Celtics, Toronto Raptors and Houston Rockets–with three a home and four on the road. Only two of those games–against Boston (1st) and Houston (14th)–are against opponents with adjusted NET Ratings ranked in the top half of the Association.
For Detroit, it has not seemed to matter. But the streak has to be snapped eventually. When do you think the drought ends? Let us know in the comments!
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