With due respect to his new boss, Cade Cunningham might disagree with Troy Weaver. The Pistons GM, wary of putting too much on the shoulders of the first overall pick, said Thursday night that Cunningham is merely a "piece of the puzzle" for Detroit.
"We're not expecting him to come in and move the world and take us any further than our team can go," Weaver said.
But have you seen Cunningham's shoulders? Have you seen where he's taken teams before? He's fully aware the Pistons won 20 games last season, fewest in the East. He also knows they have a "good young core" featuring a pair of All-Rookies. He'd rather race back to relevance than crawl.
"I’m fully comfortable and confident in myself and who I am as a player and a person. I’m grateful that Detroit has passed me that baton and now I want to take it and sprint with it. I want this year to be the year that we get into the playoffs, get some playoff experience under our belt and then grow from there," he said.
It's not that far out of the question. The Pistons were more competitive last season than their record would indicate, and they got almost nothing out of injured seventh overall pick Killian Hayes. If Hayes gains a foothold, and Jerami Grant, Saddiq Bey and Isaiah Stewart pick up where they left off, you start to wonder where Cunningham might be able to take this team as a rookie.
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The Bulls drafted Derrick Rose first overall in 2008, albeit after improbably winning the lottery. He stepped in and won Rookie of the Year and Chicago made the playoffs as the seven seed, before bowing out to the defending champion Celtics in the first round. Two years later, behind Rose's MVP season, the Bulls were the top team in the East.
Can Cunningham arrive with a similar bang? He's already been compared to a number of great players, from Larry Bird to Grant Hill. ESPN's Kendrick Perkins called him the best player drafted since LeBron James. Cunningham says such praise is "surreal." He also says it's motivating. He says it's reflective of what he wants to achieve.
"It’s crazy to me, but I’m confident in my game and I feel like I should be one of those guys that’s going to be one of the greats," he said.
If he is, and if the rest of the Pistons keep growing with him, Cunningham might be moving the world sooner than Weaver thinks.
"We’re going to have to work even harder for everything because experience isn’t on our side," he said. "But I feel like last year’s draft was huge for Detroit. They got guys that are hungry as well as super gifted. I’m excited to come in and do what I can to help and try to speed up the process of getting back to a championship."