Cade Cunningham and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander are both carrying heavy loads right now, and the parallels are hard to miss.
Detroit has spent much of the season asking Cunningham to do the work without much help from its usual star support. Jalen Duren has been sidelined since early in the second game, and the Pistons have had to keep moving with that absence hanging over everything. Oklahoma City is in a similar spot now, with Gilgeous-Alexander trying to hold things together while Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren miss time.
The situations aren’t identical. The Thunder are also without important role players such as Alex Caruso and Cason Wallace. But the comparison still matters because both stars are being asked to shoulder the offense and defend at a high level while their teams patch together the rest.
The results have looked different so far. Oklahoma City is 1-2 since the injuries hit, with back-to-back losses to Dallas and Houston.
The Rockets loss can be explained away a bit, since Houston is playing like arguably the best team in the league right now. The defeat in Dallas is tougher to swallow, and Gilgeous-Alexander’s night in that game did not help.
Detroit, meanwhile, has gone 3-1 since Duren went down, and Isaiah Joe followed soon after. The Pistons have managed to survive because Cunningham has taken on more offensively and because the roster has enough depth to absorb some of the damage. Even so, they haven’t been dealing with the same level of injury trouble across the board.
The numbers show the two stars working through similar pressure in different ways. Cunningham is averaging about 24 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists over that stretch, while shooting 43% from the field and 33% from three.
He’s also turning it over three times per game, which adds another rough edge to the shooting struggles. Gilgeous-Alexander is at about 24 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists per game, with a 49% mark from the field and 29% from deep.
He’s also been a little cleaner with the ball at 2.3 turnovers per game.
That’s where the separation still shows up. Gilgeous-Alexander remains the more efficient scorer and the better player at getting to his spots, even when the supporting cast isn’t there to make life easier.
Cunningham, though, narrows the gap with his rebounding and playmaking, giving Detroit a more rounded offensive presence. Both are strong defenders, so that part of the equation doesn’t really swing things much either way.
The bigger point is that Cunningham may be closer to Gilgeous-Alexander than plenty of people think. The next stretch, with both stars carrying more of the load on their own, should tell us even more.
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