{"id":667305,"date":"2026-03-19T18:16:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T18:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/667305\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T18:16:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T18:16:22","slug":"cade-cunningham-facing-extended-absence-due-to-collapsed-lung","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/667305\/","title":{"rendered":"Cade Cunningham Facing Extended Absence Due To Collapsed Lung"},"content":{"rendered":"

9:47 am: Cunningham has been diagnosed with a left lung pneumothroax (ie. a collapsed lung) and will be reevaluated in two weeks, the Pistons confirmed today in a brief press release (Twitter link<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"\"8:21 am:\u00a0Pistons star Cade Cunningham<\/a> has been diagnosed with a collapsed lung, according to Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link<\/a>), who reports that the guard is expected to miss an \u201cextended\u201d period of time as a result of the health issue.<\/p>\n

Cunningham, a two-time All-Star who has had an MVP-caliber season as the leader of the 49-19 Pistons, exited Tuesday\u2019s win<\/a> over Washington early due to what were referred to at the time as back spasms. Cunningham was ruled out for Thursday\u2019s rematch vs. the Wizards with his injury designation updated<\/a> to a left back contusion, but Charania\u2019s report suggests his condition is more serious than that.<\/p>\n

A collapsed lung isn\u2019t a common ailment among NBA players, but veteran guard CJ McCollum<\/a> has dealt with the issue twice in recent years and could provide a point of reference for Cunningham\u2019s potential recovery timetable.<\/p>\n

When McCollum was diagnosed with a collapsed lung in 2021<\/a>, he missed 18 games over the course of about six weeks. When he received a similar diagnosis<\/a> two years later, he sat out for about three-and-a-half weeks and missed 12 games.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no guarantee Cunningham\u2019s recovery process will mirror McCollum\u2019s \u2014 we\u2019ll have to wait for further updates from reporters or the team itself to get a clearer sense of what his timeline will look like.<\/p>\n

The Pistons hold a 3.5-game lead on the No. 2 Celtics for the top spot in the Eastern Conference, so it\u2019s not as if they\u2019ll need Cunningham to return during the regular season to help them clinch a favorable playoff seed. Still, as Tim Bontemps of ESPN notes (via Twitter<\/a>), a six-week absence like McCollum\u2019s in 2021 would keep Cunningham on the shelf until near the end of the first round, which wouldn\u2019t be ideal for a Detroit team looking to make a deep postseason run.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s certainly lower on the list of priorities for Cunningham and the Pistons, it\u2019s also worth mentioning that the 24-year-old would need to play in at least five more games to reach the 65-game minimum<\/a> for end-of-season awards. If he falls short of that threshold, he wouldn\u2019t be eligible for MVP, All-NBA, or other major individual honors for the 2025\/26 season.<\/p>\n

With Cunningham sidelined, the Pistons figure to lean more on Marcus Sasser<\/a>, Daniss Jenkins<\/a>, and Caris LeVert<\/a> for ball-handling and play-making.<\/p>\n

Detroit has held its own without Cunningham over the course of the season, posting a +2.7 net rating<\/a> when he\u2019s not on the floor. However, that pales in comparison to +10.9 mark the team has registered during his 2,096 minutes of action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"9:47 am: Cunningham has been diagnosed with a left lung pneumothroax (ie. a collapsed lung) and will be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,909],"class_list":{"0":"post-667305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cade-cunningham"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116257212749587266","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667305","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=667305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}