Cade Cunningham is audibly angry with himself. The Detroit Pistons star player has stayed behind after a winter afternoon practice, doing some extra shooting with the assistant coaches. They’re working on step-back threes, and Cunningham is yelling with genuine disgust every time he misses. Finally, three straight shots go in without touching the rim, and he erupts with jubilation.
It’s in this building, the Henry Ford Health Detroit Pistons Performance Center, where the Pistons have taken themselves from doormats to the top of the league. Their rise is spectacular, historic, and still going. For context: During the 2023–24 season, the Pistons set an NBA single-season record by losing 28 games in a row. In 2024–25 they tripled their win total and qualified for the playoffs. At the time of this writing, they’re the number one seed in their conference.
The lion’s share of the on-court turnaround is because of Cunningham, the precocious 24-year-old who’s strapped the team to his back. For the first time in nearly two decades, the Detroit Pistons have returned to the NBA’s upper tier, led by their jumbo point guard who has more than made good on his first-overall-draft-pick hype.
After being whisked away for customary post-practice treatments, Cunningham emerges again. Crucially to his profession, he’s gigantic. He stands six feet six with a football player’s muscular build, a physical reminder of the other sport he played as a child before narrowing his focus to basketball. There is more bass in his voice than most 20-somethings could ever dream of possessing, and a full, well-manicured beard covers his face. He’s wearing a pair of loose black sweatpants and a blue zip-up hoodie over a T-shirt from the brand Enfants Riches Déprimés.
We sit in folding chairs alongside a now empty practice court where we have a direct sight line to the Bad Boys’ back-to-back championship banners from 1989 and 1990, as well as the 2004 squad’s, a team without a true alpha that took down Shaq and Kobe. Zeke’s, Rodman’s, and Rip’s retired jerseys hang on the wall, among a host of others. The team’s current headliner knows exactly what it will take for him to be added to that group.
“I probably won’t feel that way until I get a couple rings, honestly,” he says. “I think that’s what it’ll take for me to feel like, ‘Man, this is my city.’ I don’t feel like the city should crown me that, because guys have won here.”
He’s not the only one who thinks this. In the Uber to meet Cunningham at the Pistons’ practice facility, my conversation with the middle-aged driver naturally drifts into Detroit sports talk. When I ask what he thinks of Cunningham, the guy takes a beat, acknowledging, of course, that the team is balling and he loves how they’re galvanizing the city. As for No. 2 specifically, he says he’s not quite ready to anoint him just yet. He needs to see Cunningham do a little bit more to enter the true pantheon of Motown sports heroes.
“I respect it!” Cunningham bellows when I tell him this story.
This is Cunningham’s fifth season in the NBA and with the Pistons, who took him first overall in the 2021 draft. He’s since reached superstar territory with both his scoring and his passing (a 20-point, 10-assist stat line has become old hat). This season in particular, he’s made the leap from nice, foundational player to the type they paint murals of. An upcoming signature shoe from Nike, multiple 30-point games, various accolades like Player of the Month and a second straight All-Star selection: They’re all part of the climb toward immortalized greatness and, perhaps, the title of best American player in the league. With LeBron, Steph, and KD well on the wrong side of the aging curve, that mantle is there for Cunningham’s taking.
The Pistons of today have done a genuine 180 from the team Cunningham joined, but it wasn’t a smooth ride to get there. As a rookie, his jump shot was errant and inconsistent. His second year was halted after 12 games by a shin injury, and then came the 2023–24 season from hell, marked by the record-setting losing streak. “It was a bullshit year,” Cunningham admits. “But there was not a day where guys quit.”
Now, with a slew of blowout wins in their game log, the Pistons are reintroducing themselves to the world, which starts right here at home with still-skeptical rideshare chauffeurs, among other grizzled Detroiters. Having to prove himself here is a major driving force for Cunningham. “You can’t just come in here acting any type of way, feeling like you the man when there’s legends that came before you,” he says. “It’s fire, bro. I love it.”
Cunningham possesses a magnificent combination of finesse and power. He plays basketball in a way that’s equally elegant and tenacious, but never reckless or out of control. When he’s driving, trying to get between him and the basket is a fool’s errand. Should a defender halt his progress, he’s also got a deep array of post moves, including a delightful jump hook. If an opponent sics their whole defense on him, he’ll locate the open man before they do.
Tobias Harris, Cunningham’s Pistons teammate who’s nearly a decade his senior, told me, “His composure is at a level that you don’t see in guys his age throughout the league. He’s a very smooth player. He’s got the calmness, but then he’s got the fire in him too.”
The internet has a term for Cunningham’s particular style of ball, which does not include constant head jerks, flails, or palms-up gestures to the referee: He is an ethical hooper. Meaning he does not rely on, or actively search for, the almighty whistle. Allow Cunningham to reflect on the tao of ethical hooping:
“I thought it was really cool that people started appreciating my game in that way. I’m like, man, I know I’m better than yada yada yada,” he says, not naming any names. (Jalen Brunson and Luka Dončić are a few of the NBA’s elite incessantly pleading to the officials.) “But I don’t get the same respect from the refs. I’m not getting the same foul calls. So people feel like this guy might be better than me, and he’s nowhere near better than me! Or like, I should have had 50 this game, or we should have won this game by 10, but we’re not getting the foul calls. I’m beating myself up over it. Then I start seeing people appreciate my game like, ‘Man, this guy’s so pure.’ People complimenting the purity of your game, I think it’s one of the best compliments I’ve ever got.”
I ask what he perceives as the biggest problem with the modern NBA. Unsurprisingly, it’s an ethics-based issue. “Foul baiting,” he says. “The referees have to get involved because we’re baiting people into fouls all the time…. The flopping is just too much.” I use this opportunity to suggest a soccer-style yellow card/red card system to police flopping, where one egregious flop triggers a technical foul, and the second one leads to an ejection. He thinks about it.
“What do you do with your best players that do it? Three of the top 5, 10 guys [in the NBA] are doing it constantly. You gon’ kick them out the game?” At this point, I directly mention the Oklahoma City Thunder and their reputation as a team that gets a favorable whistle on offense (particularly Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) while playing an overtly handsy, rarely reprimanded form of defense. “You can’t hack them. It’s tough. If I win a championship—when I win the championship—I’m going to want the same type [of whistle]. I want to be able to foul people and they can’t foul me!” he explains. “You have to ref the game for what you’re seeing, not reputations or any other stuff. It doesn’t get reffed that way.” He goes on to call flopping a “get out of jail free card” and laments the fact that foul after foul ruins the flow of the game. Then, perhaps realizing that he could be coming off as bitter, he lets his sneaky sense of humor shine through.
“But some people are better than others,” he concedes with a wry smile. “I can’t sell a foul for nothing. There’s skill to it, for sure.”
On an interpersonal level, Cunningham is contagiously laid-back. He’s levelheaded too, so much so that when talking about life in his new tax bracket, he says that one of the best parts is not having to choose between ordering steak or pasta at dinner. About midway through our conversation, now with a firsthand understanding of his whole vibe, I tell Cunningham that I’m not worried about him getting embroiled in any major scandal. “I try not to, but this world’s crazy, man—shit,” he says. “People trying to put stuff on anybody.” I explain that I don’t think it’d be anything self-inflicted with him (for instance, bringing a gun to the strip club). “Nah, I’m not doing that,” he smirks, when I bring up that particular scenario. “I’m going to keep playing.”
He’s embracing the great American player debate too.
“I take it seriously,” he says of that conversation. “I want to be on the Olympic team coming up. I think I’m the best American player.”
I stop him there.
You said, “I think I’m the best American player.” So, do you acknowledge that Shai, Jokic [some of the league’s foreign-born stars] are a level above you right now?
“No, not at all,” he says, barely containing an I shouldn’t be saying this smile. But rather than choosing the flashy, potentially inflammatory move, he settles for the safe, cerebral play. “They’re just not American.”
These are the concerns on Cunningham’s mind now, which both his team and individual success have afforded him. No longer is he worried about getting the Pistons out of the lottery and into the playoffs; they’re a reputable force. So much so, in fact, that they’re primed to compete for a championship. To do that—winning the conference and getting to the Pistons’ first NBA Finals since 2005—they’ll likely have to compete with the New York Knicks, who knocked them out of Cunningham’s only playoff series to date. That six-game battle in the spring of 2025 (which everyone in Detroit will tell you was theirs for the taking) gave many of the young Pistons their first NBA stress test, and they ultimately failed. But with major injuries this year decimating the defending Eastern Conference champion Indiana Pacers and the seemingly unkillable Boston Celtics, the East is up for grabs.
“Shoot, man. I was feeling like the East was opening up to us last season,” he says. “I just felt like we were pushing, wedging our way in. After the playoff series, I’m like, ‘Man, we got the East.’ I think we’re the top team in the East. It’s going to be a dogfight to get to the top of it, but we right there. We got all the dogs we need.”
Six days later and 40 degrees of temperature higher, I’m in Cunningham’s hometown of Arlington, Texas. Specifically, I’m at Bowie High School, where he played for the Volunteers from 2016 to 2018 (before decamping for the prestigious Montverde Academy in Florida, essentially a Hogwarts for athletes). They’re retiring his jersey, making Cunningham the first basketball player in school history to receive that honor. As guests, school faculty, and Cunningham’s loved ones file in for the ceremony, the jersey placard hangs way up in the rafters, hidden by a sheet. People wear Cunningham jerseys of every color, including a few toddlers swaddled in them, roughly eight sizes too big. What appears to be the entire Pistons roster and coaching staff are in attendance as well, a stirring display of team-wide support on their off day. The energy in the room borders on the feeling when a major politician is about to enter. Finally, Cunningham strides in holding hands with his seven-year-old daughter, Riley. Immediately, chants of “M-V-P” break out from the frenzied student section.
Soon, the speeches begin. Dr. Jennifer Collins, the deputy superintendent for Arlington Independent School District, kicks things off by gushing about Cunningham’s being proof that greatness can grow right here in these blue and orange hallways. Doris Morehead Jones—introduced to me as Mama Morehead, the matriarch of South Arlington, and also Cunningham’s favorite teacher—goes next. She airs him out for being late to her English class every single day, but also thanks him for never talking back. She starts tearing up when reminiscing on Cunningham’s journey from boy to man; she laughs when recalling a past bet to buy him lunch for every high school triple-double, despite not knowing what a triple- double was. Now that Cunningham regularly stacks triple-doubles in the NBA, and signed a contract that guarantees him $269 million until 2030, I later ask her if he has ever bought her lunch. Her response tells me that the NBA’s busy schedule hasn’t allowed for that yet, but she sure would like it to. “You know what?” she says, cackling. “Can you write that?”
After Cunningham addresses the crowd, it’s time to finally unveil the No. 2 jersey that will hang in this gym in perpetuity. Riley gets to do the honors, pulling the string that reveals it to everyone. The school band plays the Bowie fight song, its lyrics urging an onward fight for fame and glory. Before leaving, Cunningham takes photos with anyone who asks, including the current members of the boys’ basketball team, who collectively lose their minds. On my way out, I overhear a kid telling his friend that he’s going to the league one day too: “You’ll be at my ceremony.”
The night after Cunningham gets immortalized in his hometown, he plays a game against his favorite boyhood team, the Dallas Mavericks. I’m in the Cunningham family suite along with his mother, Carrie, older brother Cannen, Cade’s maternal grandparents, and cousins from both sides of the family. Grandpa cheers every Pistons’ basket, his pumping fist narrowly avoiding discarded Michelob bottles. Riley runs around with Cade’s cousins’ children, one of them occasionally looking up from their play to check on the score and announce it to the others. It’s a funny dynamic, the All-Star who is barely past being a kid himself, now serving as the entertainment for a group of kids that includes his own daughter.
Many casual fans would be surprised to hear that Cunningham is a father, and that he became one at 17, which is another testament to his low-key demeanor. In Detroit, Cunningham told me everything is cool between him and Riley’s mother. “I have a great situation” was how Cunningham put it. “Everything’s easy. She’s an amazing mom.” Smooth sailing, right in line with the overall theme of his life, full of grace and savoir faire.
In the suite, his mother says Cunningham has always been this way. “I say it all the time: He genuinely was built for this,” she tells me. “He has a calmness to him, a poise to him, it’s so admirable. He has such a gift, and he’s been shaped by a lot of experiences in his life, like being a father.” Back at the high school, his older sister, Kaylyn, had lauded his patient girl-dad approach to parenting. It’s not so strange having your kid brother become a father before he leaves for college, she explained, but it is a bit odd watching him become famous. “I think it’s weird to see his face on everything, just opening a random app like, what the hell?”
On that note, the 24-year-old multimillionaire still has some growing up to do. “I try not to be petty,” Carrie chides. “But he could call his mom more!”
During my interactions with Cunningham, I pick up on a few other signs of his youthfulness. When I ask about the spoils of being rich, he replies that there’s plenty, but also bemoans the “bullshit” that accompanies his wealth. “Can’t find no real girlfriend,” he says with a sigh. He walks me through the first time he saw his bank account after signing the maximum extension in 2024, a moment he shared with a cousin. “We about to go get some food. I checked and that motherfucker was loaded like crazy! I think we were going to Sonic or something. Could buy the whole Sonic, man! I was tripping on that.”
When I ask him to tell me something that the world doesn’t know about him, he pulls out his phone and asks ChatGPT. Nothing really new there. But there is one thing….
“I can sing like a lady,” he offers. “Like Whitney.”
You want to give me something?
“No.”
The self-assured young adult who’s composed beyond his years—showing no hesitancy in calling himself the best American player, or saying his Detroit Pistons are the team to beat in the East—finally betrays any hint of a lack of confidence by refusing to flex his vocals. But every once in a while when he’s bored, he’ll go to the studio. Whether we’ll ever hear what he makes is another story.
“I make the music for me,” he clarifies. “I don’t make it for other people to listen to. If I did, then I’d make it differently.”
A version of this story originally appeared in the March 2026 issue of GQ with the title “Meet the NBA’s Surging New Superstar”
PRODUCTION CREDITS:
Photographs by Samuel Trotter
Styled by Luka Sabbat
Grooming by Robbin Kujus
Barbering by Sebastian Jackson
Braiding by Kamary Mingo
Tailoring by Sarah Lapinksi
Special thanks to St. Cecilia’s Gym
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