How Good Is Cade Cunningham Right Now? An Analytics Focused Scouting Report
One of the most difficult things in the NBA is trying to evaluate a young player on a bad team. Cade Cunningham is an extreme version of this type of situation. He was the first overall pick in the 2021 draft and posted promising box score numbers but putrid efficiency (89TS+) as a rookie. Then as a sophomore, he missed almost the entire year due to injury. Cade rebounded in year 3 with a strong box score (22.7 Pts/7.5 Asts per game) and improved efficiency (94 TS+). During this stretch the Pistons have gotten worse every season, bottoming out at 14-68 last year. The 5-year 224 million dollar question is how good can the 23-year-old become? To answer that we first need to understand how good he is right now.
Cunningham is going into his 4th season and while the 23 pts/7.5 asts box score looked nice at a glance, added context makes valuing those raw numbers tricky. In Seth Partnows’ book “The Midrange Theory” He explains that every team will generate about 80 points, 20 assists, and 20 rebounds minimum in a game, and on some level, the team decides where those stats go based on how much usage a player is allotted. Last season 50 players averaged 20+ points a game and 28 players averaged 6+ assists a game. That means the number one option on almost every team will likely match or eclipse Cade’s numbers. Determining the quality of the box score numbers is the key to proper evaluation. This is where analytics can be extremely helpful. This is a data driven scouting report/analysis meant to quickly get you up to speed on where Cade excels and where he struggles.
Offense
Cade shows an advanced grasp of playing under control and at his own pace, preferring to operate somewhere between 2nd and 3rd gear most of the time. He leverages his larger frame for a guard well (6’6 220 pounds). His movements are smooth and his handle is very strong which helps mitigate his lack of explosiveness. That being said, his lack of vertical pop in the key is noticeable. The biggest concern with Cade is his poor Rim FG%. He gets to the rim a ton and he finishes well when you account for shot quality, but his raw efficiency is an issue. However, his midrange game is already very strong, and with continued polish could reach sage levels in his prime. He is an excellent passer, one of his best skills is the ability to keep a live dribble while probing which pairs well with his strong court vision. His turnover rate is high but once you adjust it relative to his True Usage you see it’s in line with other high-usage players. On the bright side, he almost never has the ball stolen from him and the bulk of his turnovers come on pass attempts. That should improve with age as well as playing with better off-ball gravity. His 3-point shot took a jump (36% on 5.4 attempts a game) last year which is promising. The improvement came on catch-and-shoot 3s while his pull-up game remains weak. Improving his overall efficiency is the most important thing for his long-term potential. Taking another step as a 3-point shooter as well as continuing to increase his free throw attempt rate are the clearest avenues for improvement.
A reduction in workload is another possible avenue to higher efficiency. Cade’s workload is the 7th highest over the last decade for a 3rd-year player. The Pistons added a few veterans in the offseason who will hopefully add some scoring punch to what was a dreadful offense last season. Below, you can see his shot map that has adjusted efficiency for easy comparison to other on-ball players.
(His role-adjusted shot diet)
Offensive data
Here are Cade’s offensive skills broken down by category and backed up by numbers. Below are a few metrics that will be sighted throughout the article.
Metric explanations:
-”Shooting Talent” looks at a player’s shot making, creation, and quality
-”Shot Making” looks at how well you shot relative to your shot quality + shooting volume
-”Shot Creation” looks at how often you self-generate shots
-”Stable stats” are padded with a calculated amount of league average attempts to enable high predictiveness and combat small sample size
Overall shooting:
-31st in Overall Shooting Talent (95% percentile) -see “take away” for context
-Self Created Shot Making (95%)
-Off-Ball Shot Making (79%)
-True Shooting% – 55% (37%)
-On-Ball Gravity (95%)
Take away: His ability to make tough shots is impressive but his inability to create easy looks is concerning. This could limit his long-term potential. His off-ball shooting makes the idea of reducing his Usage for better efficiency make sense.
Shooting at the rim:
-Rim Shot Creation (99% percentile)
-Rim Shot Making (97%)
-Stable Rim FG% – 56% (17%)
Take away: He gets to the rim as well as any player in the league but his lack of explosiveness is apparent. This shows up in his inability to jump off two feet in traffic. He is crafty and does convert very tough attempts at a high rate, but he doesn’t create many easy looks for himself which drags down his efficiency massively. Playing in lineups with more off-ball gravity would likely make scoring around the basket easier.
Midrange Shooting:
-Midrange Pull Up Shot Creation: (99% percentile)
-Stable Long Mid Range FG% – 47% (76%) – Outlier season relative to the rest of his career
-Stable Short Mid Range FG% – 42% (58%)
Take away: He’s already one of the best midrange shooters in the game. He’s not quite elite but he’s knocking on the door. This is a very valuable skill set and a huge positive for his long term outlook.
3PT Shooting:
Off-Ball Gravity (92% percentile)
-3PT Shooting Talent (80%)
-Pull Up 3PT Shot Making (65%) Filtered by players that attempt at least
1 3PT Pull Up FGA/75
-C&S 3PT Shot Making (68%)
-3PT% – 36% (56%)
Take away: He was solid here last season. The Pull Up Shot Making is a little misleading because so few players take them, but given how good of a midrange shooter he is, he has a chance to be good in this area. He was a viable catch-and-shoot option last season which is always a useful skill to have
Free Throw
-Stable FTA/75 – 4.7 (88% percentile)
-Stable Free throw % – 87% (86%)
Take away: He is good at getting to the charity stripe and he shoots a great percentage. This is a massive value add
Passing
-Playmaking Talent (98% percentile)
-Passing Creation Volume (97%) – Stable potential assists
-Passing Creation Quality (99%) – Quality of shots on potential assists
-Assists/75 – 8.1 (94%)
Take away: He is a very strong playmaker. Of all of the metric combinations that I know of, elite quality created for others on high volume is impossible to fake. He’s also a gifted lob thrower. He was 4th in Lob Passing creation rate last season. This is by far his most valuable trait. He’s going to be an elite passer in the league for a long time. This gives him a great floor in terms of night to night value
Offensive Rebounding
This is not a relevant part of his game
Defense
His defense has not looked great to start his career. Playing on an extremely bad team isn’t helping his situation. His size gives him some versatility and he will block the occasional shot in transition. The Pistons have kept him away from the ball using him as a chaser in his rookie year and a helper last season. He functions more as a forward on defense than a guard. A team could potentially feature some gigantic lineups with Cade as their point guard. The idea of that much team length is intriguing.
Perimeter defense
– Perimeter Isolation Defense (25% percentile)
– Ball Screen Navigation (69%)
– Off-ball Chaser Defense (82%)
Take away: He’s hasn’t been great defending on the perimeter but he has been better in ball screens. He excelled chasing shooters around off-ball
Defending at the rim
-Rim Protection (55th% percentile) – 67% among non bigs
Take away: He offers solid rim protection relative to his position
Defensive Playmaking
Defensive Playmaking – (18% percentile)
-Steals/75 – 1.0 (41%)
-Deflections/75 – 1.78 (39%)
-Stable Offensive fouls Drawn/75 – 0.11 (18%)
-Blocks/75 – 0.42 (38%)
Take away: He is not a defensive playmaker
Defensive Rebounding
-Stable Defensive Rebounds/75 – 4.1 (61% percentile)
-Defensive Rebounding Talent (51%)
Take away: He is ok at this
Contract
He only makes 14 million dollars in 2025. This is the last year of his rookie deal before his extension kicks in and then he makes 38 million dollars in 2026. The cap doesn’t affect the Pistons right now and they have no one else to spend the money on.
Conclusion
As I stated at the top of this article, figuring out Cade’s value on a team that’s so bad is difficult. But the high-end playmaking and strong midrange game are very valuable skills to possess. He needs to take another step forward in terms of scoring efficiency but at only 23 years old there’s plenty of time to improve. Defensively he will probably never be great, but I think being a decent team defender is on the table. His combination of size and coordination is promising and there has already been clear development so far. In my research, I found that Lamelo Ball was a great player comp for Cade. Both are bigger guards, gifted passers, lack high-end explosiveness, and both play with a similar gliding-like play style. Neither are great defenders and both have suffered at the hands of the cruel mistress that is the draft lottery.
(This compares both players 3rd season in the NBA)
Right now I see Cade as a B- 83 overall type player who’s a high-end passer, with a developing scoring game. He’s an obvious building block player who is well-suited to play alongside a score-first All-Star who can ease his creation burden. If you’re a Pistons fan you should be excited about Cade’s long-term prospects. He clearly has the makings of a future All-Star.