Much has been written over the past few weeks regarding the decline in the entertainment value brought forth by the All-Star Game by virtue of the decrease in effort put in by the players involved. However, no one can ever say that the Detroit Pistons' representatives for the 2026 NBA All-Star Game, Cade Cunningham and Jalen Duren of the Team USA Stars squad, ever refused to give it their all even for just one second they spent on the court.
Either of them may not have won the MVP honors for the 2026 NBA All-Star Game, but both Zach Lowe and Bill Simmons of The Ringer credited the Pistons' star duo for just being true competitors for the love of the game.
“I thought the Detroit guys genuinely care and that’s why the game was good,” Simmons said on the Sunday night edition of The Bill Simmons podcast.
“It’s what you like about the Pistons,” Lowe added. “The fight against Charlotte is the downside of what they are, but the upside of what they are, they legitimately just want to beat the hell out of you and out physical you, and out touch you and they want to make you quit.”
All systems go for a deep 2026 playoff run for the Pistons?
The Pistons had a taste of postseason action in 2025, falling in six games to the New York Knicks in the first round. But now, they've grown even further, emerging as one of the most difficult teams to beat in the NBA on a night per night basis.
Detroit simply wants to swallow their opponents whole, and it's that nightly intensity on the defensive end that makes them so suffocating to play against. And both Cunningham and Duren set the tone for Team Stars, which certainly played a part in why they blew out Team Stripes, 47-21, in the final game of the night.
