Cade Cunningham dropped 29 points, 15 assists and 10 rebounds in Madison Square Garden last night to hold off the Knicks in a much-needed win for the PIstons.
It snapped a 3-game losing streak, as well as a [16-game losing streak](https://pistonpowered.com/detroit-pistons-knicks-injuries-humiliating-streaks-how-watch) the Pistons had against the Knicks that stretched back to 2019.
Cunningham was almost perfect in the game, his 5th triple-double of the season, which is second in the league only to Nikola Jokic.
Cade has been lights out of late, as he’s averaging 26 points, 11.2 assists and 7.4 rebounds over his last five games, including the last two where he has racked up 29 assists to nine turnovers.
> dark. Related Story. Cade Cunningham's postgame comments should worry Pistons fans. Cade Cunningham's postgame comments should worry Pistons fans
We’ve heard a lot of dumb narratives around Cunningham in is career, that he’s not _him,_ he’s not a superstar, you can’t build around him, blah blah blah, most of which are simply the product of him being on a bad team that has never had a reliable secondary weapon.
But perhaps the dumbest narrative around Cade is that he is not a point guard, something that I hear nearly every day from the fanbase. Can we put this one to bed already?
There is a segment of the fanbase that is obsessed with whether Cade is a “true” point guard, whatever that means in the context of the modern NBA.
If it feels better to call him a playmaking wing or a point forward, then go for it, but either way, he’s the one who's going to have the ball in his hands, is the engine of the offense and sets up all of his teammates, which sounds quite a lot like a point guard to me.
Cunningham is currently third in the NBA In assists per game, but not a point guard. He accounts for a huge percentage of his team’s points as a scorer or creator, but not a point guard.
He had 15 assists last night to three turnovers and was involved in more than half of the Pistons’ points. At one point in the game, Cade had scored or assisted on 31 of the Pistons’ 57 points. Not a point guard though.
Cade Cunningham recently had a stretch of 9+ assists in 11 straight games, which we haven’t seen since Isiah Thomas, who was also probably not a point guard.
The detractors, who think Jason Kidd is the only real point guard who has ever lived, will point to Cade’s turnovers and yes, he is leading the league in turnovers per game. Here are the top 10 players in turnovers:
\-Cade Cunningham
\-Trae Young
\-LaMelo Ball
\-James Harden
\-LeBron James
\-Brandon Ingram
\-Nikola Jokic
\-Victor Wembanyama
\-De’Aaron Fox
\-Stephen Curry
What a bunch of bums! I count four current or former MVPs on this list, a bunch of All-NBA and All-Star appearances and the two faces of the NBA.
Yes, Cade turns the ball over too much, but so does every player who is the engine of their team’s offense and has the ball in their hands nearly every play.
I’ve written about how Cunningham needs to [cut down on the unforced ones](https://pistonpowered.com/cade-cunningham-clean-up-errors-detroit-pistons), but otherwise, he is right on pace with all the other high-usage superstars who see a ton of double teams and are responsible for making their team’s offense go.
Cunningham doesn’t even have the highest turnover rate on his own team, not even close, as he is 6th behind Jalen Duren, Ausar Thompson, Isaiah Stewart, Ron Holland and Jaden Ivey.
This is the second reason why this point guard narrative is so dumb. Even if you believed that Cunningham wasn’t a point guard, who is going to replace him exactly? There isn’t another point guard on this team, including Jaden Ivey, who turns the ball over at an even higher rate than Cade.
Do the Pistons need a secondary creator? Absolutely. Do they need more talent? Yep. Does Cade Cunningham need another player to take the load off him? Yes.
But none of those things add up to him not being a point guard or needing to be moved off the ball. Cade Cunningham IS the Pistons’ offense, so call him whatever you want, but it doesn’t change the reality.