Cunningham narrowly misses being named to second team
Cade Cunningham was named to the All-NBA Third Team, the first Detroit Pistons player to earn All-NBA honors since Blake Griffin was named to the Third Team in 2018-19.
It was also recently announced that Cunningham finished seventh in MVP voting, and Cunningham earned his first All-Star appearance in what was a special season for the Pistons and their star.
Cunningham led the Pistons to a historic turnaround that saw them become the first team in NBA history to triple their win total from one season to the next, going from 14 wins to 42 wins. Cunningham averaged 26.1 points, 9.1 assists and 6.1 rebounds.
He became just the seventh player in NBA history to reach those marks in a season, joining LeBron James, Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic, Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Oscar Robertson. Cade also tied Grant Hill for most 20-5-5 games in franchise history.
Cade Nearly Makes Second Team
Cunningham received by far the most points of any player on the Third Team. He was just nine points from the media panel from making the Second Team over Jalen Brunson of the New York Knicks.
In fact, Cunningham received more First Team votes (six) than three players named to the Second Team — Steph Curry (two), Evan Mobley (one), and Brunson (two). Brunson had him beat in Second Team votes, however, 62 to 50.
Named to the First Team were: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokic, Jayson Tatum, and Donovan Mitchell. The Second Team consisted of Anthony Edwards, LeBron James, Steph Curry, Evan Mobley, and Jalen Brunson. The Third Team was Cade Cunningham, Karl-Anthony Towns, Tyrese Haliburton, Jalen Williams, and James Harden.
Salary Cap Implications
The honor comes with more than a trophy for Cunningham. By earning an All-NBA spot, his max extension goes from 25% of the cap to 30% of the cap. That means that his total salary goes from $224 million over five seasons to $269 million.
That will impact the amount of cap space the Pistons will have available as it looks to take the next step as a franchise.
His salary for the 2025-26 season would rise from $38.6 million to $46.4 million. The Pistons will have the salary cap space to easily absorb that hit, but avenues to improve are few, especially if Detroit has designs on re-signing its veteran free agents in Malik Beasley, Tim Hardaway Jr. or Dennis Schröder. Detroit is most likely to in Basley to a new deal, and would need to use cap space to do it.
They will go from $24.6 million in cap space to roughly $16.8 million, along with the $8.8 million Room Exception. However, the Pistons will likely not operate as a salary cap team because of salary cap limitations. Instead, they will likely earmark nearly all of their non-taxpayer mid-level exception to Beasley on a new deal, decide whether to retain Tim Hardaway Jr. on a much smaller deal than his previous one, and see if there is mutual interest in a return with Dennis Schröder. They would then have a $5.1 bi-annual exception to add an additional player or two.
If they want to make more radical changes to their roster, it would require a trade of players on the current squad, and could include a sign-and-trade with one of their pending free agents.