The Detroit Pistons received difficult news on Thursday when Cade Cunningham was diagnosed with a collapsed lung, though there was at least some relief that he avoided a broken rib, as Vincent Goodwill of ESPN reported on NBA Today.
Goodwill indicated that Cunningham is expected to miss the rest of the regular season, but Detroit remains hopeful he can recover in time for Game 1 of the playoffs, which are set to begin on April 18.
The team initially announced he would be reevaluated in two weeks, and there’s optimism that his lung will have healed by then.
If that timeline holds, Cunningham would likely progress to non-contact work for about a week before advancing to contact activity leading into the postseason.
“It’s tough. Tough for Cade to go through what he’s going through now,” head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said prior to Thursday’s game at Washington.
“ … He’s a huge part of what we do from a leadership standpoint. The talent’s there, but being around him every single day makes people’s days better. We’ll miss that.”
Pistons Notes: Cunningham, Duren, Bickerstaff, Thompson https://t.co/wM7EZNQySB pic.twitter.com/hDDU6NidRj
— Hoops Rumors (@HoopsRumors) March 20, 2026
