Central Notes: Cunningham, Bickerstaff, Siakam, Bulls

Pistons guard Cade Cunningham will make his second straight All-Star appearance on Sunday. He tells Marc J. Spears of Andscape that being selected to the 2026 exhibition was one of his long-term goals, as the mini-tournament is being held at the Intuit Dome, where the men’s basketball competition will take place at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

“The L.A. All-Star Game was part of that plan,” Cunningham said. “I wanted to make sure I’m in there. And then win a championship and be an Olympic point guard. It’s all part of the long-term plan, for sure.”

Cunningham is having an excellent all-around season for Detroit, averaging 25.3 points, 9.6 assists, 5.6 rebounds and 1.5 steals on .462/.330/.802 shooting through 46 games (34.9 minutes per game). Head coach J.B. Bickerstaff made sure to point out that Cunningham excels on both ends of the court for the top-seeded Pistons.

“He is a [6-foot-6] point guard who dominates all areas of the offensive end of the floor,” Bickerstaff told Andscape. “But what I don’t think people talk about enough is his defense, his willingness to guard the other team’s best players.

“The impact that he has on that end of the floor – to me, he’s one of the top five two-way players in our league. There may be some guys that they talk about offensively, but his impact is on both ends of the floor. There’s not many guys in this league that are that way.”

Here’s more from around the Central:

• In an interview with Steve Bulpett of Heavy.com, Bickerstaff said he didn’t expect to be hired by the Pistons in the 2024 offseason after being let go by the Cavaliers. “I didn’t think I was going to get a job,” Bickerstaff told Heavy Sports. “There weren’t jobs available at that point. So I was just sitting at home and hanging out with my family back in Cleveland trying to figure out what was next. We were going to move to San Clemente, California. There’s a soccer academy there, and we were going to go there and let the kids go to the academy and train.” Bickerstaff has spearheaded a dramatic turnaround in Detroit, and he says he was able to grow from the experience of being fired by the Cavs. “That month that I had off gave me an opportunity to, like, evaluate myself and think about what I was going to be at the next opportunity and just understanding that the focus should always be on the process and not just focused on the results,” he said. “In my last year in Cleveland, I let that get the best of me, where it was like results, results, results. And we skipped some of the process stuff.”
• Pacers star Pascal Siakam recently spoke to Mark Medina of EssentiallySports at the Basketball Without Borders All-Star camp at the Lakers’ practice facility. Siakam was introduced to the NBA world when he attended a BWB camp in Africa in 2012. “I saw Luol Deng. I saw Serge Ibaka. I saw NBA players at that time. I thought, ‘This is cool.’ I saw NBA coaches. I had never been exposed to the NBA beforehand. I think that was my first time,” Siakam said. “I think I will always remember those memories and see how excited we were to get the opportunity. After that, my love for the game grew. We’re here now.” The All-Star forward also discussed his growth as a vocal leader, Tyrese Haliburton‘s impact on the team as he recovers from a torn Achilles tendon, and his excitement about playing with new starting center Ivica Zubac, among other topics.
• Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times grades the Bulls‘ trade deadline moves, giving the front office a D-plus because the series of transactions “came at least a season too late.”