OKC Thunder seek to rebound from 73 point loss, face the Pistons
Key matchup:
The hope is Josh Giddey has recovered from the flu so OKC Thunder and Pistons fans can witness the rookie showdown with Cade Cunningham. While many projected Cunningham would be the best of his class he’s consistently ranking below Giddey, Evan Mobley, and Scottie Barnes.
Cunningham got a late start to the season after suffering a bad ankle sprain. He missed five of the first six games of the season and took a while to mesh with his pro team.
In 17 games he’s averaging 14.1 points, 6.3 rebounds, 4.6 assists, and 1.2 steals. Like Giddey, his issue has been the shooting efficiency with Cade averaging 37.1 percent from the field and
28.7 percent from the perimeter.
Like Giddey he’s making subtle improvements which can be seen from his first nine games where he shot 34.6 and 25.8 from the field and perimeter versus the last eight games where he’s shooting 40 and 32.1 percent.
The irony of course is Cunningham was considered the cream of the 2021 class mostly due to his overall game and potential to fill up the box score. And while he’s improving upon his scoring the fact that Giddey is too but also collecting more rebounds and assists is telling.
As much as everyone will be excited to view the two rookies (assuming Giddey is good to go) the player who Mark Daigneault needs to do the most preparation for is former Thunder teammate Jerami Grant.
The forward really began to improve under the tutelage of then assistant, Adrian Griffin in OKC. During his time in Denver, he took another step with his star rising during the playoffs. In free agency, he elected to sign with the Pistons and is their primary star but many wonder, if he’ll remain with Detroit, or if the franchise will move him now when his value is high.
It’s a bit of a perplexing puzzle for Grant and the Pistons as they are trying to build around Cunningham. And while Grant has done his best as the primary star for Detroit the reality is he’s better suited as a secondary or more accurately the third star on a deep squad.
For example, his 3-point shooting has regressed to 33.3 percent and much of that may be due to the extra attention he elicits as the primary scorer. Through 21 games he’s averaging 20.1 points, 4.8 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.2 steals, and 1.0 block in 33 minutes.