DETROIT (USA) - Cade Cunningham, a strong MVP candidate for the Detroit Pistons, has come into his own this season, helping to bring the good times back to the Motor City in basketball.
It's not just that the 2.00M (6’6”) guard averafed 23.9 points per game. He's also dishing out 9.9 assists and corralling 5.5 rebounds per game and doing whatever is needed for the Pistons to win.
"Cade is in that stage now where he just believes he's different..." Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said on @RoadTrippin.
"If the MVP is the person that's most important to winning, with the record that we have, and the weight that he carries, there's no doubt in my mind that he's the MVP."
Cade Cunningham won the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup with USA
Cunningham has always had amazing potential, which is why Detroit selected him first overall in the talent-heavy 2021 Draft.
Other outstanding players with USA Basketball connections were taken after Cunningham, like Jalen Green, Evan Mobley, Scottie Barnes and Jalen Suggs, as were FIBA stars from overseas like Australia's Josh Giddey, Germany's Franz Wagner and Türkiye's Alperen Sengun.
I take it seriously. I want to be on the Olympic team. I think I’m the best American player
Cade Cunningham
Giddey and Wagner were stars at the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 and the 2024 Olympics, and Sengun led his national team to the FIBA EuroBasket 2025 Final where Wagner's Germany edged the 12 Giant Men.
Cunningham now wants to jump into the spotlight for USA.
"I take it seriously," he said in GQ. "I want to be on the Olympic team coming up.
"I think I’m the best American player."
Cunningham was a leader for the USA team that won the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup in 2019.
In 2023 he was a member of the USA Select Team that trained with the USA Men's National Team in Las Vegas ahead of the World Cup 2023.
If Cunningham didn't make the trip to Manila for the World Cup, where USA finished fourth, and didn't feature the following year at the Olympics in France, his body of work this season suggests he is likely going to play for the Americans in LA.
He's the main reason why Detroit, at 60-22, had the best record in the Eastern Conference.
"You talk about a guy that on any given night will guard the other team's best player, and still has the burden that he carries on the offensive end for us," Biggerstaff said. "You talk about a guy who never takes away from his teammates, only gives to his teammates.
"He doesn't suffocate his teammates so that they can't grow. He gives them the opportunity to grow, the opportunity to spread their wings. There is no doubt in my mind that he would be the MVP if the season ended today."
If Cunningham were to win the MVP award, he'd be the first American to do so since 2018, when James Harden scooped the honor.
Giannis Antetokounmpo of Greece won it twice in a row after that, and then Nikola Jokic of Serbia claimed the award in three of the next four years, with Cameroon native and USA Olympic enter Joel Embiid winning in 2023.
Canada's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander took the MVP last season, when he led Oklahoma City Thunder to the title.
FIBA