{"id":615591,"date":"2026-02-21T10:39:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T10:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/615591\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T10:39:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T10:39:17","slug":"what-do-you-do-with-your-best-players-that-do-it-cade-cunningham-accuses-3-of-the-top-10-players-in-the-nba-of-being-foul-merchants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/615591\/","title":{"rendered":"“What do you do with your best players that do it?” – Cade Cunningham accuses 3 of the Top 10 players in the NBA of being foul merchants"},"content":{"rendered":"

During his recent interview with Matthew Roberson of GQ, the Detroit Pistons superstar\u00a0Cade Cunningham<\/a>\u00a0admitted that foul-baiting is the biggest problem the NBA faces today, with players aggressively hunting fouls and baiting defenders into committing them rather than playing the game organically.<\/p>\n

But while most issues have solutions, Cunningham said that flopping in the NBA is proliferating because the best players in the league are doing it all the time, night in and night out.<\/p>\n

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“What do you do with your best players that do it?”said<\/a>\u00a0Cunningham.\u00a0“Three of the top 5, 10 guys in the NBA are doing it constantly. You gon’ kick them out of the game?”<\/p>\n

SGA, Luka, and who?<\/p>\n

Without naming anyone, it was obvious which players Cade was talking about.\u00a0Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a>\u00a0is, of course, one of them because he is the player most associated with the foul-merchant tag. Gilgeous-Alexander ranks second in the league at 8.2 free throw attempts per game. Then there is Los Angeles Lakers superstar\u00a0Luka Doncic<\/a>, who leads the league at 8.5 free throw attempts per game.<\/p>\n

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It’s unclear who the third one he is referring to is. It could be Nikola Jokic, who ranks 6th overall at 6.5 free throws per game, but Jokic does not hunt fouls the way Luka and Shai do. Or it could be Anthony Edwards and Victor Wembanyama, who shoot 5.8 free throws per game, tied for 9th overall. Both are considered Top 10 players and also draw a lot of fouls.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, though, Cunningham is ranked in the Top 15 in free throw attempts per game. At 5.7 foul shots per contest, he is No.12 on the list, tied with Lauri Markkanen. But when you look at the Top 5 players in the NBA KIA MVP ladder, Cade shoots the fewest free throws per game.<\/p>\n

Related: “For six years, I didn’t get a nickel!” – Scottie Pippen’s ex-wife Larsa once revealed difficult divorce experience<\/a><\/p>\n

Doesn’t get the same whistle<\/p>\n

While Cade did call out his peers, he did not blame them. In fact, Cunningham said selling a foul is a skill, but it’s not one that he’s good at.<\/p>\n

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On the contrary, he called out the league’s officials,\u00a0blaming them<\/a>\u00a0for giving some players a special whistle. Cade said he hopes to get the same calls when he adds the Larry O’Brien trophy to his resume.<\/p>\n

“You can’t hack them. It’s tough. If I win a championship\u2014when I win the championship\u2014I’m going to want the same type of whistle. I want to be able to foul people, and they can’t foul me!”\u00a0he explained.\u00a0“You have to ref the game for what you’re seeing, not reputations or any other stuff. It doesn’t get reffed that way.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

At 41-13 on the season, Cade’s Pistons have the best record in the Eastern Conference right now, and they are percentage points ahead of the defending champions, the Oklahoma City Thunder, for the best record in the entire league. Cunningham’s MVP odds have significantly shortened since his 42-point explosion at The Garden.<\/p>\n

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Hard as it is to say this, there’s a chance that the Pistons win it all this season. Hopefully, he gets the whistle he wants, but doesn’t end up on the floppers list, either.<\/p>\n

Related: J.B. Bickerstaff compares Cade Cunningham to Tim Duncan and Stephen Curry: “He can get full without taking food off your plate”<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Basketball Network<\/a> on Feb 21, 2026, where it first appeared in the Latest News<\/a> section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During his recent interview with Matthew Roberson of GQ, the Detroit Pistons superstar\u00a0Cade Cunningham\u00a0admitted that foul-baiting is the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[375,7,909,188,1727,976,150,508,81457,6,253,179,209,693],"class_list":{"0":"post-615591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-anthony-edwards","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-cade-cunningham","11":"tag-detroit-pistons","12":"tag-free-throw","13":"tag-lauri-markkanen","14":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","15":"tag-luka","16":"tag-matthew-roberson","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-nikola-jokic","19":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","20":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","21":"tag-victor-wembanyama"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116108195527046446","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}