The Detroit Lions had a devastating loss in the NFC championship game and fans immediately decided on the same scapegoat for why.
The city of Detroit has shown tremendous pride for the Lions during this recent playoff push, even packing Ford Field like an actual home game for a watch party against the San Francisco 49ers.
Believe it or not, we haven’t seen the Pistons and Lions win a game on the same day in more than 770 days. At this point, some are wondering if it is even possible.
According to many fans, the win over Oklahoma City depleted all of the good luck that the city of Detroit could have in one day. An upset win for the Pistons, some believed, meant that a victory for the Lions couldn’t happen.
Of course, we know that the two events had nothing to do with each other. But for fans in Detroit, they’re going to have to wait even longer to see these two teams win on the same day again.
Now that the Lions were officially eliminated from postseason contention, that streak will reach at least 1,000 days as Detroit fans will have to wait until the NBA and NFL are in-season at the same time again later this year.
Unless these players denied invitations, these are some very shocking decisions by Team USA.
USA Basketball announced a 41-athlete player pool as candidates for the Paris Olympics roster. Eventually, 12 players will make the final cut.
Among the 12 names that we initially projected to make the roster after the 2023 FIBA World Cup, 11 appeared on the first list. Those players were LeBron James, Joel Embiid, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Anthony Davis, Jayson Tatum, Devin Booker, Damian Lillard, Bam Adebayo, Anthony Edwards and Mikal Bridges.
A few notable All-Stars to also earn invitations include Chris Paul, James Harden, Kyrie Irving, Paul George, Jimmy Butler, Kawhi Leonard, Donovan Mitchell, Jaylen Brown, Trae Young, Jrue Holiday, De’Aaron Fox, Tyrese Haliburton, Brandon Ingram, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Jarrett Allen.
The other players were Paolo Banchero, Desmond Bane, Scottie Barnes, Jalen Brunson, Alex Caruso, Aaron Gordon, Josh Hart, Tyler Herro, Chet Holmgren, Cam Johnson, Walker Kessler, Bobby Portis, Austin Reaves, Duncan Robinson and Derrick White.
Two players who we did not include in our surprising omissions were Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green and Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant. While both of these players may have helped the team on the court, they have faced off-court issues that made invitations unlikely — plus Morant is currently injured.
Otherwise, these were the most surprising omissions from the list:
Detroit Pistons star point guard Cade Cunningham was floated as a potential San Antonio Spurs trade target.
As the San Antonio Spurs look to build around Victor Wembanyama moving forward, they should constantly be exploring potential opportunities to improve. Head coach Gregg Popovich noted that the team is unlikely to make any such moves this season, as the team is sitting at the bottom of the Western Conference,
That said, if the right player becomes available, the Spurs should be ready to jump at the chance to snag him. Wembanyama has all the talent in the world, and while that hasn’t translated to winning yet this season, putting help around him should be the team’s top priority.
“The Pistons would demand a massive haul of picks for Cunningham, and the Spurs could entertain that,” Kubicek wrote. “Cunningham showed in college that he can be one of the best pick-and-roll players in the league, but has never really played with a viable partner. Enter Victor Wembanyama. Surrounding that duo with elite shooters already on the roster would immediately make the Spurs infinitely better. A war chest of picks would be the asking price, but it’s only been two calendar years since Cunningham was the undisputed first-overall pick. He’s been playing quite well, but for a horrible team that frankly is not fun to watch, so people have written him off.”
The Pistons just snapped a 28-game losing streak, but it seems unlikely that they part ways with Cunningham, who has been the lone bright spot in Detroit this year.
Adding him would give the Spurs a dynamic duo to lead them into the future, but it would cost a hefty sum, and the Pistons would almost certainly rather keep him and look to turn things around.
In a matchup of the top two picks from the 2021 NBA draft, Cade Cunningham and the lowly Pistons (3-29) hope to upset Jalen Green and the Rockets (15-15).
After Detroit’s home win over Toronto on Saturday night, the historic 28-game losing streak for the Pistons (3-29) is no more.
So, as they start the 2024 calendar year with a New Year’s Day game at Houston’s Toyota Center on Monday, are Cade Cunningham and the Pistons primed for a letdown after that emotional win? Or do they finally have some semblance of momentum?
Jalen Green and the host Rockets (15-15) should have ample motivation, since they’ve lost three straight games and are hoping to avoid falling below .500 for the first time in nearly a month.
Green enters on something of a hot streak and historically comes out aggressively in matchups versus Cunningham, who was the only player picked ahead of Green in the 2021 NBA draft.
Houston is, however, still short-handed at its forward spots. Small forward Dillon Brooks remains sidelined by a right oblique strain for at least a few more days, while Jabari Smith Jr. — the usual starter at power forward — is questionable with a left ankle sprain.
The #Rockets upgraded Jabari Smith Jr. (left ankle sprain) to questionable for Monday's game.
Cade Cunningham is showing what leadership looks like during the Pistons’ losing streak
Losing teams are fascinating.
Winning teams are more fun, for sure, but they’re also incredibly phony. It’s easy to act like everyone gets along when you’re winning. It’s easy to hide most blemishes. It’s, honestly, even a little bit boring.
There’s really only one way to win. You celebrate, you give thanks — typically to God, teammates and family — and you can pretend there are never any problems behind the scenes.
Losing is where it’s at. It’s where you learn about professional athletes as humans. Take an exceptional athlete who has won at every level their entire lives and put them onto a team that hasn’t won in months at the absolute highest level and you’re essentially stripping them down to the studs.
There are so many ways to lose. So many different reactions and so few ways to hide. Though, let’s be clear, hiding also teaches you plenty about a person.
For 27 consecutive games he’s taken the floor for the Detroit Pistons in a losing effort and for 27 consecutive games he’s owned up to it, even when it’s not his fault.
Tuesday was certainly not his fault. Staring down an an NBA record losing streak, Cunningham did everything he could to pull out of victory for Detroit. He scored 41 points on 15-for-21 shooting from the field with nine rebounds and came up with big play after big play despite the Brooklyn Nets successfully holding off the Pistons on the road.
It would’ve been understandable if Cunningham didn’t want to talk after the 118-112 loss. Instead he showed more maturity and grace than most 22-year-olds are capable of.
Cunningham — one of the youngest players on the team — is telling the locker room to hang tough and “don’t jump off the boat”.
“Everyday, I try to lead the squad,” Cunningham said. “I haven’t been successful with that. Two-and-28. I just felt like it’s only right that I come up and can speak for it, be the face for it. That locker room and everybody in there cares a lot. Everybody’s trying to do everything they can to win games and be successful. I put a lot of that weight on myself, for sure.”
Compared to how others in the organization — *cough, cough* owner Tom Gores — have taken responsibility for the streak, it sure is something to see Cunningham put this on himself. There was no mention of moral victories, just harsh truth and serious perspective.
And if that doesn’t make you want to root for him, if that doesn’t teach you something about Cunningham that winning never could, that’s fine, too.
Sports are an escape, after all. But it’s also not realistic. Good times don’t last. Good attitudes do. Detroit will win again, eventually and everyone will act like they get along and love each other and all that.
Just don’t forget what we learned about Cade along the way.
Gooooood morning, Winners! Hope you’re having a fantastic week so far. How many times have you asked yourself what day it is this week? I’ve done it no less than 15 times and it’s only — wait, what day is it? … Wednesday! … 16 times.
That’s not surprising. But look on the bright side! At least this time the Pistons came close to a win! The team played the Nets close at home for most of the game and even took a small lead in the fourth quarter.
On the not-so-bright-side, Cade Cunningham had to play the entire second half for the Pistons to get to that point. And, boy, was he brilliant. He scored 41 points in the game — 37 of them came in the second half. It still wasn’t enough to carry the Pistons to a win.
There were some inexplicable coaching decisions made down the stretch. Ausaur Thompson only played nine (!!!) minutes all game. Alec Burks — who was a team-worse -25 — played 26 minutes, including the moment where he shot an inexplicable 3-pointer down the stretch.
That’s been the thing all season with this team. Cunningham will turn lemons into lemonade with the team’s starters and have the game in a manageable space. Then Monty Williams will play a bench unit that just completely folds. It’s like carefully building a house of cards and then trying to add a brick to the top of it. It just doesn’t make sense.
That’s what’s led to this historic losing streak from the Pistons — the longest streak in NBA history for a single season. I have to apologize. I thought the Pistons were going to be able to steal this one. We were close. It just wasn’t meant to be.
That’s good to see, man. Those fans deserve to watch a winner again. Hopefully, they’ll get one soon. Or, at least, maybe Tom Gores will sell the team, per their request.
Listen. I know nobody likes to work during the holidays. But when you’re paid the big bucks, sometimes that’s what you have to do.
Someone should tell that to Lane Kiffin, who complained about the transfer portal impacting his team’s preparation for the Peach Bowl this weekend.
The thinking is that Kiffin and his staff have to work players in the transfer portal to coax them into their program and keep his own players from leaving. He has to do all that while also preparing for a bowl game. Kiffin is annoyed by that. He called it a “terrible system” and compared it to free agency in professional sports as if he’s dealing with professionals.
Maybe that’s fair. That is a doing a lot. But, hey, man. The game is the game. Plus, it seems to have worked out well for Kiffin. Our Meghan Hall has more on that here.
That colossal signing didn’t stop Kiffin from quietly (and rather calmly) slamming the system during a Tuesday media session where Max Ralph of All Penn State on Fan Nation asked him about the timing of schedules in December.
Honestly, man, if I had a dime for every time a coach complained about the transfer portal I’d be rich at this point.
Coaches need to accept that the port is a thing. It is now an essential piece to being a great college football program. Freedom of movement for players is a good thing. Could it use a bit more organization? Sure. But a coach like Kiffin could leave a school for his next job at any moment and leave players high and dry — even during bowl season. It’s not a problem that the kids can do the same thing.
Sorry, Lane. But you’ll have to deal with it.
No one is great in the NFL
Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports
Watching the NFL has been so weird this season. It feels like the action and games have all been pretty good, but there’s been something missing all season.
“Baltimore, a team that already has losses to the flawed Indianapolis Colts and Pittsburgh Steelers, remains vulnerable in its quest to take down the AFC’s top seed.
Behind them lies a frustrating upper crust liable to be blown out by a less talented opponent any given week. We know this because the Detroit Lions, Dallas Cowboys, Kansas City Chiefs, Miami Dolphins, Buffalo Bills and Philadelphia Eagles have each scraped the dizzying heights of Super Bowl contention and had that post-win bliss stomped out by garbage teams before they could stamp their place on the contenders’ list.
As a result, no one is trustable. Not even a Ravens team and its likely MVP quarterback who also happens to be 1-3 with a 68.3 passer rating in the postseason. Whether that’s a feature or a bug depends on how much predictability you like in your playoffs. But either way, it’s made our power rankings a total crapshoot where we’re forced to just sorta shrug and say ‘yeah, I *guess* the Cowboys are 2023’s fifth-best team.’,”
Maybe this changes at some point in the postseason. Maybe it doesn’t. Regardless, I think we’re in for a wild and weird postseason this year.
Quick hits: Do you believe in love? … The Pop-Tart Bowl trophy looks tasty … and more
That’s all, folks. Thanks so much for rocking with The Morning Win today. We appreciate you. Have a fantastic Wednesday. Let’s chat again soon. We out. Peace.
There is no other reasonable conclusion after watching Detroit lose to the Utah Jazz at home on Thursday night. The Jazz — who aren’t a good team to begin with — were without three starters, including leading scorer Lauri Markannen, second-leading scorer Jordan Clarkson, and starting point guard Keyonte George.
And yet they beat the Pistons by eight anyway.
After another humiliating loss, former No. 1 overall pick Cade Cunningham had a strange assessment of his 2-26 team. According to Yahoo Sports’ Vincent Goodwill, Cunningham professed that there was “no way” they were this bad. Oof, buddy.
I know Cunningham is an athlete frustrated by his team’s circumstances. He probably feels that the Pistons might just be having a horrific stroke of poor luck. But man, they’ve won twice all season, and Christmas is right around the corner. More importantly, they’re on a 25-game losing streak!
I hate to break it to Cunningham, but his Pistons are indeed that bad.
Look out, 1972-1972 Philadelphia 76ers. Your record for 73 losses in a season now feels more in reach than ever.
Plus, here are your thoughts on if the Clippers should trade Terance Mann.
Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Have feedback for the Layup Lines Crew? Leave your questions, comments and concernsthrough this brief reader survey. Now, here’s Bryan Kalbrosky.
The Detroit Pistons may not win a ton of games next season but it already looks like they might be one of the most fun teams to watch in the NBA.
Detroit’s first preseason game of the year was against the Phoenix Suns. Despite trailing by as many as 26 points at one point in the match, the Pistons managed to claw back and force overtime.
While it was excellent to see former No. 1 overall pick Cade Cunningham back on the court for the first time in eleven months, Pistons rookie Ausar Thompson stole the show.
The wing, selected at No. 5 overall in the 2024 NBA Draft, led the way on the court. He managed 12 points, 10 rebounds, 6 assists and 1 block during the performance.
Ausar Thompson full highlights from preseason debut:
12 PTS | 10 REB | 6 AST | 1 BLK 📈
The passing ability, perimeter defense, rebounding tenacity … oh and the game-tying 3 … he flashed it all 🚀 pic.twitter.com/HUTNmA2Ikf
Williams helped turn the Suns from one of the league’s bottom dwellers to a title contender, earning a trip to the 2021 NBA Finals. The Suns had a .232 win percentage the year before Williams arrived and within his second year on the job, they had a .708 win percentage. That was the highest percentage increase of any two-year period in franchise history.
Just listen to Brooklyn Nets forward Cam Johnson, who had glowing reviews about his experience playing for Williams, explain why (via The Old Man & The Three):
“The way that he’s able to communicate, the way that he’s able to teach, really flattens out that learning curve a lot to the point where you know exactly what he wants. He communicates it to you and he’s a stickler for details which is huge for [the] habits of a young player. He’s on top of every detail and he’ll hold you accountable. […] I didn’t want to let him down. I think those are the coaches that you respond to best. […] Every thing I’ve heard is that they’re a hungry group willing to buy into what he has and if you buy in, he can turn teams around quick.”
The forward also praised Williams’ ability to draw up plays that can create easy buckets.
Johnson specifically mentioned Cunningham and Jalen Duren as two players who stood out to him on the USA Select Team.
Williams could help the development of Thompson, Cunningham and Duren as well as other emerging players for Detroit like Jaden Ivey, Killian Hayes, Marvin Bagley and James Wiseman.
Overall, this is a team loaded with talent and they could potentially surprise some fans this season.
To Mann or Not To Mann
Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
From Mike Sykes: Shoutout to everybody who participated in our Clippers poll over the weekend. Y’all are the best. We asked if you thought the Clippers should be willing to include Terance Mann in a James Harden trade.
In total, we got 56 responses and 52 votes from Layup Lines readers. An overwhelming majority of you (57 percent) said absolutely not.
Some of you also explained why. There were a couple that stood out to me.
One reader posited a potential Joel Embiid trade next season if this happens.
“I definitely think this helps Philly a lot, because Terrance Mann and the first-round pick allows them to have a bright young future and possibly get even more capital with an Embiid trade next summer (Knicks?). Think of it like a Blazers haul. On L.A.’s side, it wouldn’t really pay off in the long run, but they absolutely need to win it all this year because if they trade for the Beard, then he, Kawhi, and PG are all unrestricted free agents next summer, and in today’s world, it would be extremely hard for the Clippers to re-sign all three of them.”
Another said the price of Terance Mann is too high for a potential one-year James Harden rental. Especially if he’s going to be a malcontent at all.
“Mann is too high a price for a one-year rental – and that is IF Harden decides to play 100% for said year. I think part of the calculus has to include Harden’s desire for a long-term contract that he expects (there are reports to say that he wants/expects one should go to the Clips), and the Clips tolerance for absorbing a contract that could turn sour overnight.”
Just a little more food for thought on this already tough subject.
Where should Victor Wembanyama rank? Here’s the answer, along with the other best young NBA stars.
We are entering a new era of the NBA with Victor Wembanyama as one of several young stars vying to become the face of the league.
Now that the NBA’s 2023-24 season is less than a month away from tipping off, as we did last year, we have decided to re-rank the 23 best players who are under 23 years old.
But why 23? Well, it is not just because that was the number worn by Michael Jordan. Typically, NBA publications rank 25 players under 25 years old. You can read versions of that here, here, and here. I wanted to try out a similar thought experiment but with a new twist.
By the time NBA players are 25 years old, many have already graduated to their second contract and are in vastly different chapters of their careers than the league’s young players. It is harder to compare players like Luka Doncic and Jayson Tatum, who will each earn more than $30 million next season, to players on rookie scale contracts.
The following rankings, meanwhile, are based predominantly on how we see NBA projections for next season. It is not as predictive of their future success or their potential in the league.
NOTE: For this exercise, all players included must be born after Oct. 24, 2000.
On top of all that, the 20-year-old has been working on his game. Kuminga and his different workout partners have shared clips of the explosive forward practicing his craft at different workouts during the offseason.
Recently, Kuminga participated in an open run with other members of the NBA, including a former No. 1 overall pick. Kuminga joined New Orleans’ Trey Murphy, Chicago’s Andre Drummond and Detroit’s Cade Cunningham for a workout at Sam Okauru’s “Jefe Island.”
During the run, Kuminga showed off his vision with some nice passes at the rim along with a smooth jumper that lead to some hits from beyond the arc. Kuminga also navigated through the lane to get some easy dunks at the rim.
In his second season, Kuminga averaged 9.9 points on 52.5% shooting from the floor with 3.4 rebounds in 20.8 minutes per contest. With Andrew Wiggins out, Kuminga stepped up for the Warriors, averaging 13.7 points on 60% shooting from the field with 4.4 boards and 1.8 dimes in 24.2 minutes per contest over his final 19 games of the 2022-23 season.
Following multiple departures from key contributors like Jordan Poole, Donte DiVincenzo, Anthony Lamb and JaMychal Green, Kuminga could be in line for an expanded role in Steve Kerr’s rotation.
