LAS VEGAS – Cade Cunningham is coming back for season two with the Pistons a little bit older, a little bit wiser and a little bit more than a little bit stronger.
Bigger, too. After playing most of his rookie season fluctuating between 210 and 215 pounds, Cunningham came to the conclusion he needed a little more ballast to survive the rigor of an 82-game NBA schedule. His range this summer has been 225 to 230. That’s where he wants to stay.
He’s spent more time in the weight room than he’s ever done in the past and he’s ramped up his caloric intake while maintaining a vegan diet.
“I feel like my first month of really locking in in the weight room has been good for me,” Cunningham said after a Summer League practice. “I feel great.”
There will be more on Cunningham’s plate, literally and figuratively, when he comes back for his second season. The challenge will require not only the physical fortification the weight room supplies but a mental and emotional hardening to meet the moment.
He got a pretty good taste of that last season when Jerami Grant’s six-week injury absence forced the Pistons to place the burden of being not only primary playmaker but late-clock magician on Cunningham’s shoulders. With Grant traded to Portland and the Pistons adding two more precocious lottery rookies, Jaden Ivey and Jalen Duren, there is no uncertainty now about Cunningham’s place in the hierarchy.
Befitting the conscientious leader his rookie performance suggested he would grow to become, Cunningham deflects when it’s suggested Grant’s exit makes him the de facto team leader.
“Yeah, maybe. But I think just the mindset is we’re all hungry to get the season started, getting going together and prove ourselves in the league,” Cunningham said. “Super young core, so nobody’s going to give us anything. But we’re ready to go in and prove ourselves. I think we’ve got a lot of talent to do it.”
To that latter point, Cunningham was just as slack-jawed as anyone on draft night when general manager Troy Weaver came away with both Ivey and Duren.
“It was a great night, for sure,” he said. “No complaints. I’m happy we got two big-time talents. I don’t know how they did it. Troy worked some type of magic, but I think it worked out perfect.”
When it looked like Ivey, a top-four pick by the overwhelming consensus of pre-draft analysis, would be out of reach for the Pistons, those in the draft industry lamented the missed opportunity to pair Cunningham’s genius with Ivey’s athleticism. Now that it’s a reality in the making, Cunningham sees the same synergy brewing.
“I mean, he’s fast – I’m not fast,” Cunningham cracked. “So having someone like that with me spreads the floor out a lot. It can help us push the pace. I like to kick ahead to push the pace and he can sprint ahead. I think we both have a good feel for getting teammates involved, so it should be fun.”
The world at large will have to wait until October to see Cunningham and Ivey in tandem, but the Pistons have gotten glimpses already in Summer League practices that have included Cunningham and Saddiq Bey. Pistons Summer League coach Jordan Brink saw something beyond even their on-court spark that speaks to Cunningham’s readiness for his destiny as the franchise’s leader.
“Pair (Ivey) alongside Cade and I think you’ve got two dynamic guards and dynamic in different ways,” Brink said. “The biggest thing this week has been just Cade’s leadership towards Jaden. As someone who’s been around, they’re going to play alongside but he’s trying to teach him how we do things and to just pull him along. That’s been the coolest part about the two together this week has just been the leadership part and the communication piece. Jaden’s trying to soak up as much knowledge as he can.”
Ivey might beat Cunningham comfortably in a footrace, but Cunningham isn’t going to gear down his processing of the game to accommodate Ivey’s acclimation. He won’t defer as a way of artificially speeding Ivey’s learning curve.
“I think it’s important to be confident in my game and not try to accommodate to him to allow him to get going,” he said. “Just encourage him to be aggressive and let him know I’m going to be aggressive, too, and then we kind of figure it out going 100 miles an hour rather than catering to each other and trying to figure each other out. We’ve done pretty well in the practices we’ve been able to play together so far. I think with more time, we’re just going to get better and better.”
One element of leadership is acute self-awareness and Cunningham passes that test, too. Asked about his takeaways from his rookie season and how that informs his summer focus, Cunningham didn’t pull any punches as to the most obvious chink in his armor from last season – turnovers.
“Taking care of the ball for sure,” he said after averaging 3.7 turnovers a game. “Just being solid in my space. I want to be comfortable owning my space – in the paint, in traffic, whatever. That was super important to me and we’ve been doing a lot of real things that will help with that. And then, shooting the ball, for sure.”
The Pistons have amassed a remarkable amount of young talent in Troy Weaver’s two years on the job with 10 players 23 or younger comprising a core with Cunningham at the heart of it. He’s doing everything in his control to fill up that space and keep Weaver’s restoration on course.
"wait" - Google News
July 11, 2022 at 08:10PM
https://ift.tt/8iBTO60
Cade locks in, bulks up and can’t wait to lead Pistons into his second season - NBA.com
"wait" - Google News
https://ift.tt/IlNBqbe
https://ift.tt/sIyTrAQ
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Cade locks in, bulks up and can’t wait to lead Pistons into his second season - NBA.com"
Post a Comment