Efficiency is everything in today’s NBA. So much so that many people will have honest conversations about whether Allen Iverson or even the seemingly irreproachable Kobe Bryant, two legendary shot chuckers who compiled a career 42% and 44% career field-goal percentage, respectively, were actually overrated by the masses of critics/fans not yet privy to the advanced lenses of modern statistics.
If you are one of these people, you think Cade Cunningham’s 46-point, 12-rebound, 11-assist triple-double on Monday was an actual bad performance, at least from an efficiency perspective, because it took him 45 shots to get there.
It’s true, and fitting for this conversation, that Cunningham’s 31 missed shots topped Kobe’s previous and dubious NBA record of 30, which he pulled off in November of 2002 when he finished 17 for 47 in a loss to Boston.
Before we go any farther, shout out to Jumpin’ Joe Fulks and the four times he bricked at least 34 shots in a single game between 1946 and 1948.
Technically, Fulks is still the NBA record holder here, and honestly, how anyone managed to get up 55 shots in a 1948 basketball game is beyond comprehension. But to say this was a different time and game would be an understatement. For basketball as we know it, nobody has ever missed more shots in a single game than Cunningham did on Monday, and again, if you’re an efficiency zealot, you’re not so impressed by the sensationalized stat line.
But I’m here to tell you, you should be.
Start with this: The Pistons won. For the seventh straight game. Defeating the Wizards in overtime. So it’s not as if Cunningham, who was a plus-10 in his 45 minutes, shot his team out of the game. In fact, it would be hard to argue that he didn’t shoot Detroit in to the game.
Consider that the Pistons were on a back-to-back and playing without four rotation players (six, if you want to count Jaden Ivey and Marcus Sasser, who have yet to play this season). No Ausar Thompson. No Tobias Harris. No Caris LeVert. No Isaiah Stewart. Cunningham had to be aggressive for the Pistons to be competitive, even against a team like the Wizards, one night after playing 41 minutes in an absolute dogfight victory over the Sixers.
To even have the energy to pursue that many shots, let alone put up an across-the-board stat line that has never been recorded in all of NBA history when you include the five blocks (!!!) and two steals, is incredible. When Cunningham reentered the game with just over nine minutes to play and the Pistons down by 10, he would’ve been forgiven for taking his foot off the gas and being happy with the six straight wins.
Instead, he put up 19 points and five assists from that point forward and absolutely willed the Pistons, who now sit atop the Eastern Conference at 9-2, to yet another win. Here are the buckets:
More importantly, let’s take a look at some of the misses. What you will find, and what you already know if you actually watched the game, is that Cunningham was not jacking up a bunch of forced shots like some sort of playground ball hog. The the contrary, he was getting to all his spots. For the most part, every shot he took was a good, routine look in keeping with his regular shot diet.
These are wide-open looks the Pistons want and need Cunningham to take every single time.
Cunningham is consistently among the league leaders in drives per game. It’s what he does. Get downhill into the paint, where he finishes or finds teammates popping free from the defense he collapsed. He does that here, but it just doesn’t go in.
Finally, his bread and butter. The short mid-range, where he entered the game making 52% of his shots, an 85th percentile mark among point guards, according to Cleaning the Glass, that is nearly identical to that of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. This is his absolute sweet spot. This is not a bad shot. This is just tired legs, plain and simple.
Of Cunningham’s 31 misses, nine were from 3-point range, where he has admittedly struggled this season, entering Monday with a hit rate of just over 30%. Of the remaining 22 misses, only four came from outside the paint. So again, he was getting the right shots. This was not a “freeze out everyone else and go hunting for my own numbers” type deal. He did what he had to do one night after a 41-minute basketball war with five of Detroit’s top seven players in street clothes.
Honestly, this was an MVP-level performance. I understand he missed a lot of shots. But he had the stones to keep taking them because there wasn’t a better alternative, and when the Pistons needed him most, he didn’t say, “This isn’t my night,” and start getting hesitant. No, he took the game over. And the Pistons have their seventh straight win to show for it.
