Longtime Pistons announcer thinks Detroit has championship potential with Cade Cunningham

It's a new era of Detroit basketball, and if there's a city that knows a thing or two about basketball "eras," it's Detroit.

An argument can be made that the Pistons have been in an era of darkness for almost 20 years now. One could say that the Pistons entered that era in November 2008 when they traded team leader and NBA Finals MVP Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson, who was way out of his prime.

That era largely continued up to the 2021 NBA Draft, when Detroit had the chance to select Cade Cunningham No. 1 overall out of Oklahoma State.

Die-hard fans would tell you that the darkness persisted even after the drafting of Cunningham. He missed most of his second season with a shin injury, and in year three, he and his teammates suffered the worst season in franchise history as the Pistons went 14-68.

Now in his fourth NBA season, though, Cunningham has finally found the star power that made him the No. 1 overall pick. He averaged 26.1 points, 6.1 rebounds and 9.1 assists per game this season while leading Detroit to an incredible turnaround.

“Cade Cunningham is all of that, and he’s a superstar," longtime Pistons announcer George Blaha told Kory Woods of MLive ahead of the playoffs. "The performance he put in against the Knicks (on April 10) was a superstar performance. And when you’ve got a guy like that on your team, you can go a long, long way. He seems to be getting better and better all the time."

The Pistons went from 14-68 to 44-38 and a berth in the NBA playoffs as the sixth seed in the East. They gutted their front office and coaching staff after last season — and much credit needs to go to president of basketball operations Trajan Langdon and head coach J.B. Bickerstaff — and they put better pieces around Cunningham.

New veterans have stepped up, and several young pieces have grown into their roles in the NBA, but the Pistons are where they're at because Cunningham blossomed into a superstar this season. He was an All-Star and more for Detroit.

It's fitting that Blaha brought up the Knicks because New York is Detroit's first-round opponent. In that April 10 game mentioned by Blaha, a 115-106 win for the Pistons, Cunningham put up 36 points with eight assists and two rebounds.

The Pistons will need more like that against the Knicks in these playoffs, and, if they move on past New York, Cunningham will have to continue being a star.

You get the sense that those around the Pistons do believe that they're entering a new championship era, though. It may not happen in these playoffs, but sooner rather than later, because of Cunningham, the Pistons could find themselves back in the NBA Finals.

“When he gets around the basket, you can’t stop him. I’ve told him the last year and change — when he’s in that area around the paint, unless they double or triple him, you can’t stop him," Blaha said of Detroit's young star. "And when you need him most, like they did against New York, he comes through. That’s why they’ve got a chance down the road to win a championship."  

There's not yet been a name given to this era of Detroit basketball, but it is notable that this 2024-25 team has similarities to both of the championship eras of the past.

The Pistons of the late 1980s and early 1990s were known as the "Bad Boys" because of their toughness, grit and downright nastiness on the court. They won back-to-back NBA championships in 1989 and 1990.

The Pistons that won it all in 2004 were in their "Goin' to Work" era. Led by the defense and toughness of Ben Wallace and starting lineup that featured no superstars but four great players alongside Wallace in Billups, Richard "Rip" Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince and Rasheed Wallace, the Pistons beat the star-studded Los Angles Lakers in the 2004 NBA Finals. They went back to the Finals the next season and took the San Antonio Spurs to a seven-game series. It was almost another back-to-back championship experience.

Those were the highs for the Pistons in this modern era, but what has come since have been lows and plenty of them.

Cunningham appears poised to take the Pistons right back up to the NBA mountaintop again, though. Sooner rather than later.