Well, this is not good.
Shams Charania of ESPN shared the unexpected news this morning of Cade’s injury:
This is devastating news for the Pistons organization during a season of Cade ascending to stardom and becoming a top-five player in the league.
So, what does this mean?
Well, depending on how long Cade will be out,
hitting the 65-game mark to be eligible for postseason awards is now on the line. Cunningham has played in 61 games so far this year, though the most recent one was only five minutes. He’ll need to play about five more games and there are only 14 games left on the Pistons schedule.
Shams shared no details of a return because every situation is different for a collapsed lung. We have some recent examples of NBA players experiencing this injury. It happened to CJ McCollum twice – in 2021 he missed 18 games and in 2023 he missed 12 games. That’s a timeframe of roughly 20-40 days. In 2015, Terrence Jones had a collapsed lung (also on March 19), but only missed seven games and still was ready in time for the playoffs.
The last game of the season for the Pistons is April 12 which is 24 days away. There’s absolutely a scenario where Cade is back in time for the playoffs, if not by the end of the season. It’s possible Detroit plays it safe and keeps Cade off the court for the rest of the regular season to make sure he’s ready for Round 1 given their lead in the Eastern Conference.
All this to say, the season is not over – not even close. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for the next month in hopes Cade has a speedy recovery. It’s a bummer he most likely will not be eligible for awards this year, but being healthy for the start of the playoffs should be his and the organization’s #1 priority right now.
I would expect Daniss Jenkins to start in place of Cade while I would want more playmaking duties to be given to Ausar Thompson and Jalen Duren. I would argue Duren now becomes your #1 scoring option in the starting lineup and should be used in a high-usage role. Why not see what JD can do as the main guy over the next few weeks?
Heal up soon, Cade.
Go Stones.
