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The Detroit Pistons were not supposed to be this good immediately. Two seasons ago, Cade Cunningham only managed to get this team to 14 wins. Fast forward to present day, he is an MVP candidate and are entering the NBA Playoffs with 60 wins as the first seed in the Eastern Conference. No one has seen his growth more than Jalen Duren, who also rose to stardom in the 2025-26 season. The big man even dropped some big words about his running mate.
Duren gets real on Cunningham, Pistons' growth before NBA Playoffs
Adding 16 more wins to a team's record in just a span of a season is not an easy feat. But, Cade Cunningham and Jalen Duren were able to pull it off with the Pistons. Obviously, they have a great schematic mastermind in Coach J.B. Bickerstaff alongside a great supporting cast too. Although, the big man posits that a lot of their growth leading to the NBA Playoffs was only possible because of Cunningham.
Duren got real on how the Pistons star guard was able to evolve himself to ensure that they kept playing winning basketball, via Hunter Patterson of The Athletic.
"It’s just a testament to the kind of guy he is. He’s super unselfish. Obviously, we know he’s an MVP candidate; he’s a highly-touted player in this league. So he could be trying to go get 30 or 40 every night, and he’s very capable of doing so. But he’s a guy who gets everybody involved from top to bottom. He’s a guy who shares the ball, gets off it early and lets other guys be successful. And that helps our team," the Pistons big man declared.
Duren would not be wrong on his assessment of Cunningham. The Pistons star guard has cut back a lot on scoring so that he could facilitate and let his teammates shine.
In fact, a glaring comparison of his assist-to-points ratio proves this. In the 2024-25 season, he averaged 26.1 points while taking about 20.8 field goal attempts on a nightly basis and dropped 9.1 assists. When compared to Cunningham's statistics for 2025-26, he dropped all the way down to 23.9 points per game by only taking 18.6 shots a night. Unsurprisingly, he then proceeded to dish out more and notched an average of 9.9 assists.
There is something amazing about the Pistons' growth and it will be on full display in the NBA Playoffs because Cunningham will be on the court.
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