Report: Pistons to select Cade Cunningham with No. 1 overall pick

The Detroit Pistons are expected to select OK State guard Cade Cunningham with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft on Thursday night, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported earlier in the day. That is if the Pistons don’t end up trading the pick, which is still on the table, per Woj. Instead of leaking the pick while the Pistons were on the clock, Woj just decided to give it to us about 6 hours too early. Gotta love draft day!

Anyway, this isn’t all that surprising. The Pistons had been mulling over the decision of selecting Cade or Jalen Green or Evan Mobley at No. 1 overall. Cunningham is the best prospect in the class and has the most upside, so he was always going to end up going to Detroit. Cunningham remained -8000 to go first overall on DraftKings Sportsbook prior to the news and even after some of Woj’s reports.

Cunningham is a 6-foot-9 combo guard, the prototypical player that is becoming very popular in the NBA today. He isn’t going to be Luka Doncic, but Cunningham should be a matchup nightmare for opposing teams. He can score in a multitude of ways and has good rebounding sense and vision at the position. Cunningham will need to develop a more consistent jump shot, particularly from outside, but the rest of his game is relatively polished.