18 hours Ago
Detroit Pistons assistant coach Jarrett Jack felt a sense of pride when he overheard Cade Cunningham addressing his teammates. Cunningham had a 21-point and 11-assist double-double to help the Pistons beat the Boston Celtics 117-97 on Feb. 26.
He checked out of the game with 4:40 remaining and Detroit leading by 18. At that point, Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla was also emptying his bench. Advertisement Jack’s proudest moment regarding the Pistons’ All-Star showing his leadership this season came at the end of Detroit’s eight-game winning streak.
And it had nothing to do with running a play, throwing a pass or draining an open 3. “I remember a couple of guys were, I don’t want to say overdoing it. But they were very much riding the wave of the basketball we were playing,” Jack told The Athletic.
“ (Cunningham) grabbed a couple people and was like, ‘Yo, man, you’re going to stay humble through this. We’re not gonna get happy. .
.. We’re not going to get outside of our bodies.
We’re going to stay laser locked in, and we’re going to be the same team. Winning streak, losing streak, whatever. That’s who and what we’re going to be.
’ “Mind you, the game is still going on.” Jack spent 13 years in the NBA as a point guard. Drafted in 2005, Jack retired in 2018, and during his career, he played with and against multiple Hall of Famers and future Hall of Famers.
It’s fair to say he has a gauge on what characteristics a good leader must have. Considering the Pistons won 14 games last season and were in the process of defeating the defending champions by 20 points, the urge to celebrate a blowout win was only human. Jack noticed Detroit players admiring their work.
While he understood their reaction, Jack hoped Cunningham would intervene. It didn’t take long before Jack’s hope became reality. After hearing Cunningham’s willingness to be outspoken and set the precedent for how the Pistons would continue to win and lose together, Jack felt compelled to give the Detroit guard props behind closed doors.
“I just sat and grabbed him probably the day after,” Jack said. “And I was like: ‘Man, that was amazing. You aren’t trying to be the fun police, but you’re also a little bit more big-picture attached.
’ Clearly, he read the moment, but he was like, ‘No, there’s something bigger here that I feel compelled to speak on and speak to my guys about.’ “I don’t know if we get that (version of Cunningham) last year.” As much as his development from the post and career-best 3-point shooting this season, Cunningham’s leadership has been a catalyst for his success.
It has helped lead the Pistons to a top-six seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs for the first time since 2008. Dating to his freshman year at Bowie High in Arlington, Texas, Cunningham’s leadership style was bred through trial and error, and a little tough love from older players when he was on varsity as a freshman. Cunningham’s coach during his first year, Allen Gratts, recalled when an upperclassman reminded Cunningham he wouldn’t be allowed to take over.
Advertisement “He played a little bit of everything,” Gratts told The Athletic . “One of our senior point guards said, ‘You know, the number of points you score depends on the number of times I decide to pass you the ball.’” Despite those restrictions, Cunningham’s talent couldn’t be denied.
“Cade averaged, like, 15, 16 points as a freshman. So Cade had to deal with a little bit of jealousy,” Gratts said. “As for being a freshman, coming in, taking someone’s position and being on a top-10 team in the state of Texas, coming in, I think he was more on the opposite end and was catching a little bit of flak from his early teammates rather than leading at that time.
” During Cunningham’s first two years at Bowie High, he mostly started at power forward. “That wasn’t going to work for me in the NBA,” he told The Athletic in 2019 . Cunningham asked his older brother and cousin what they thought about him switching to point guard full-time.
Before Cunningham’s junior season, he worked with his brother on the position change. There were rough patches along the way, but Greg Gober, Cunningham’s grassroots coach with the Texas Titans, noted Cunningham had a knack for taking control. “He doesn’t ask if he can be the leader,” Gober told The Athletic in 2019 .
“He just starts doing it, and the next thing you know, people follow him. He has been as much or more of a coach for us than me at times here.” Cunningham’s leadership extends well beyond the basketball court, though.
On April 1, 2022, the third-to-last game during Cunningham’s 23-49 rookie season, Detroit was on the road against the Oklahoma City Thunder. It was Cunningham’s only trip to Oklahoma City that season, roughly an hour from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, where he had played college basketball the year before. Cunningham played just eight minutes in the 110-101 win, but his college coach, Mike Boynton, remembers that evening for what happened after the game.
Advertisement “After the game, he spent time with two of our guys who walked (on) the year he played, as well as a couple of his other teammates, as well as my wife and my kids,” Boynton told The Athletic . “Just his ability to make everybody associated with him feel like they’re a part of his success is, I think, a rare trait.” Cunningham also displayed his leadership traits to Trajan Langdon after Langdon accepted the job to become the Pistons’ new president of basketball operations in May 2024.
Shortly after he inked his deal, Langdon took multiple meaningful walks with Cunningham. It was a priority for him to become acquainted with his then-22-year-old franchise player. Langdon was aware of Cunningham’s talent and potential on the hardwood, but their summer jaunts opened Langdon’s eyes to just how much Cunningham valued leadership.
“He talked about it a lot last summer when I first got the job,” Langdon said after a recent practice. “We had some long walks early on. He asked me some pointed questions about who I was, what I believed in, what I wanted to do here and what my philosophy was.
“We agreed to disagree on some things pretty early on. But I knew, at that point, that he really cared and that leadership was important to him — and to keep growing as a leader. He talked about it, and now he’s shown it.
” Hooping in the Garden is nothing new for Cade pic.twitter.com/b80MwZiizS — Detroit Pistons (@DetroitPistons) April 18, 2025 Cunningham’s leadership is more intuitive now.
He has a stoic demeanor, occasionally showing emotion after tough shots or dunks. But he’d rather show than tell. “I try to be myself every day; I try to play as hard as I can and play to win,” Cunningham said.
“I think my teammates respect that. I think that’s something that everybody wants to follow, is somebody that wants to play to win every time. So I don’t think it’s always about words but more so just my approach to the game and how focused I am.
” Advertisement Although Cunningham prefers to lead by example, he doesn’t shy away from stepping up and being a vocal leader. Cunningham, alongside Isaiah Stewart, the longest-tenured Detroit player, decided he wanted to lead through wins and losses this season. Cunningham’s monologue, Jack said, came from knowing how to conduct himself in front of reporters during a 28-game losing streak in 2023-24.
“He wanted it to be on him because he feels, being the franchise, he’s not going to shy away when things are going bad,” Stewart told The Athletic . “Nah, he was going to stand tall through tough times, and (he’s) going to face it like a man. With him doing that, that was my mindset as well.
We’re not going to run from it; we’re right here. “We truly believed better times were coming. .
.. We had that belief.
” Cunningham took it upon himself to sit through postgame media availabilities after a seemingly never-ending streak of losses and remind his counterparts to be gracious in victory, drawing a direct correlation to the Pistons’ success this season. “I feel like the group is more successful when he’s being vocal and sharing what he’s seeing on the court,” Jalen Duren told The Athletic in March. “Because he’s one of the guys drawing the most attention.
So, I think when he’s being vocal and leading, even building guys up ...
hearing his voice to encourage people goes a long way.” Cunningham’s next, and biggest, opportunity to display his leadership and what it has meant to this Detroit group comes Saturday. He’ll be embarking on the beginning of his playoff career at Madison Square Garden.
And although the No. 3 seed New York Knicks are favored in the series, Cunningham is eager to build on a skill he’s been nurturing since he was a teen. “I’ve been trying to do it for years now, but it was definitely a learning process earlier in my career,” he said.
“Now, I think I’m starting to come to form for it.” (Top photo: Brian Sevald / NBAE via Getty Images).
