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Pistons' Cade Cunningham Reacts to NBA's Flopping Problem

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Rolly Gacelo | Last updated Feb 19, 2026 10:15 PM ET

Conversations around flopping in the NBA have been going on for a long time, and for Detroit Pistons star Cade Cunningham, that’s the biggest problem the league has right now. He also claimed that the best players are the ones exploiting it.

Ethical hoops have been an intense subject among fans, and the 25-year-old star is joining the conversation. He believes the league should do something about foul-baiting.

“The referees have to get involved because we’re baiting people into fouls all the time…. The flopping is just too much," he said in an interview with GQ.

What should be done? The two-time All-Star can’t offer a solution, although he knows who’s doing 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?”

Detroit Pistons guard Cade Cunningham reacts after a dunkVincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

The top five players in the league right now according to Kia MVP Ladder are 2025 MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, three-time MVP Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic, Victor Wembanyama and Cunningham.

Foul-baiting is blamed for the lack of toughness in today’s NBA. Former players and purists think the league lacks the physicality it had during the 1990s and 2000s.

Cunningham is not the first active star to point out how the best players in the league use flopping to get calls. Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics said on his stream last December that MVP candidates are floppers and that they are abandoning their dignity for it.

“If you wanna be a great player, you gotta sell your soul,” he said.

“You gotta be a flopper. If you wanna be an MVP, you wanna be top of the top, you gotta sell your soul and just be a flopper.”

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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