A hard collision with Washington Wizards rookie Tre Johnson threatened to derail Cade Cunningham’s season. Instead, it served as a prelude to the most consequential stretch of his superstar journey thus far.
Two days after exiting the March 17 road game, the Detroit Pistons announced Cunningham had suffered a collapsed left lung. It was worse than that – president of basketball operations Trajan Langdon revealed during his end-of-season press conference on May 19 that Cunningham also suffered a fractured rib.
The poorly-timed injury opened up the possibility that Cunningham would miss the final 14 games of the season, which would’ve left him a game shy of the NBA’s 65-game awards eligibility mark and behind-the-curve in his physical conditioning heading into the playoffs.
None of the worst-case scenarios came true. Cunningham returned with three games remaining and finished the season with 64 played, which prompted the NBA and NBPA to reach an agreement to make him award-eligible. He proceeded to dazzle with a strong individual postseason performance, leading the Pistons to their deepest playoff run in nearly two decades. His second straight All-NBA appearance followed soon afterward.
In Year 5, the 2021 first-overall pick silenced many of the concerns surrounding him. It was his best season both as a playmaker and defensively. He thrived as a No. 1 scoring option, particularly in the playoffs, for the No. 1 team in the Eastern Conference. And he became the Pistons’ first player to make first-team All-NBA since Grant Hill – establishing Cunningham as a potential perennial MVP candidate and a player the front office will go all-in on building around this offseason.
“Working on my body, becoming a better athlete, things like that,” Cunningham said after the team’s elimination in Game 7 to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the second round, when asked about his summer priorities. “All those things will help me a lot. Continuing to sharpen my game. My game feels sharp right now. Building off of where I’m at right now and continuing to add on and become the best player I can be. All those things are on the forefront of my mind and I have time to work on those things. I’m just focused on how I can get better now.”
Cunningham averaged 28.1 points, 7.5 assists, 5.1 rebounds and 1.1 steals per game while shooting 40.2% from 3 during the playoffs. His already-heavy regular season workload increased further, all while he was still working his way back from missing three weeks of action in March and April with an injured rib and lung.
Langdon stressed the deconditioning aspect of Cunningham’s recovery, as collapsed lungs necessitate rest to properly heal. As his peers ramped up for postseason play, he was instructed to keep his heart rate low. Cardio carried the risk of his lung re-collapsing, which would’ve further prolonged his return.
With just three regular season games to get his wind and conditioning back, Cunningham hit the ground running in the playoffs. He opened the series against the Orlando Magic with 39 points and was one of the top all-around performers of the postseason.
His best game came with the team on the brink of elimination, down 3-1 in Game 5: 45 points on 56.5% overall shooting in a duel with Paolo Banchero at Little Caesars Arena. He followed with 32 points, 10 rebounds and four steals in a Game 6 comeback in Orlando, and 32 points, 12 assists and two blocks in Game 7 to secure their first trip to the second round since 2008.
“I thought Cade was an absolute warrior,” Langdon said. “I certainly haven’t gone through a collapsed lung. I can’t imagine many people in this room have, especially a collapsed lung and fractured ribs at the same time and really getting no ramp up going into the most intense part of the season. He played three games. When you have a collapsed lung you can’t do anything for 7-10 days. You’re sitting on the couch and you’re making sure that you’re just relaxing. That decondition just happens and it’s deconditioning at the exact wrong time of the year when you’re heading into the playoffs, and especially with what we ask from him.
“For him to get back to the place where he was playing at a high level and leading our team both on and off the floor, playing both ends, a lot was asked from him in a short amount of time. For him to do what he did, he was an absolute warrior and for that we’re all appreciative. What he did is not easy.”
The biggest surprise of Cunningham’s postseason run was his improved 3-point shooting. He’s a career 34% shooter from outside and hit 34.2% of his attempts during the regular season, but shot six percentage points better in the playoffs while taking more attempts per game. He routinely stepped into 3-pointers to punish how teams defended him in the pick-and-roll. The biggest weakness of his offensive package became a strength.
“Just letting it fly, trusting my work, being really intentional with how I warm up and going into each shot, make sure I give it a good chance,” Cunningham said after Game 6 on May 15, during which he scored 21 points and hit five of his 10 3-point attempts. “It’s opened up a lot, obviously, having guys have to really respect it and fly out at me. I want to get to the rim, I want to get to the midrange but being able to shoot the 3, obviously, just adds more layers to my game.”
Cunningham’s continued growth as an outside shooter will be crucial to both his and his team’s success. After finishing fifth in MVP voting and receiving two first-place votes, he’s now being regarded as one of the league’s brightest young stars. He, and the Pistons, understand they will only go as far as he’s able to push them.
“I think he will learn from the 14 games we played in the postseason,” Langdon said. “And again, he was put in a really, really difficult position coming back off of not being able to do much for 14 days. At that time of the year everybody’s in elite shape and he’s trying to get back to where he was. I thought he was in incredible shape and getting ready to explode in the postseason when what happened, happened in Washington and really set him back.
“I know it frustrated him a lot. He didn’t get to be his best self, nobody can in that situation. But he’ll learn from it. He’s probably going to look at everything and say ‘I’ve gotta be more efficient, just overall.’ All of our guys do. The more efficient you are, the better chance and the less mistakes that we make.”
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Contact Omari Sankofa II at osankofa@freepress.com. Follow him on X and/or Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: How a collapsed lung added to Cade Cunningham’s superstar trajectory
Reporting by Omari Sankofa II, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
