Cade Cunningham gained his first All-Star selection last season. The Detroit Pistons guard appears well on his way to earning that distinction again with the way he’s playing early this season.

The Pistons are off to a 5-2 start, thanks to the production of their floor leader. Detroit will be seeking its fourth straight victory when it hosts the Utah Jazz on Wednesday.

Cunningham is averaging 28 points and 12 assists during the current streak. He posted a 30-point, 10-assist double-double against Orlando, then supplied 21 points and a career-high tying 18 assists against Dallas in Mexico City.

Cunningham delivered the knockout blows against Memphis on Monday, scoring 19 of his 33 points during the fourth quarter of a 114-106 victory.

“He’s a bad man, and that’s it,” head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “When it’s winning time, you got to have a guy like that on your team, and we are extremely fortunate to have him because there’s not a play that he can’t make. There’s the courage in his bones to take those shots, make those shots. Obviously, 19 points in the (fourth) quarter closed the game out for us, separated the game for us down the stretch. I can’t repeat it. You watched it. You saw how spectacular he was (Monday).”

He got plenty of assistance from Isaiah Stewart, who was inserted into the starting lineup with Tobias Harris sidelined by an ankle injury. Stewart erupted for 26 points, 14 rebounds and four blocks.

“It’s his heart, it’s his courage, it’s his determination, it’s his grit. His love for the Detroit Pistons, the city of Detroit,” Bickerstaff said. “He plays for them. He plays for his teammates, and he was undeniable (Monday).”

The Jazz have won four of the last five meetings against Detroit. Utah snapped a three-game losing streak on Monday, as Jusuf Nurkic’s last-second putback gave it a 105-103 win over Boston.

“So many guys I feel like played well and had big moments,” coach Will Hardy said. “It’s a great team win for us. That’s who we have to be. We’re going to have to win ugly. We’re going to have to win close. We’re going to have to have a lot of people have moments in the game for us to win.”

The Jazz are in the midst of a five-game road swing. In the first two legs of the trip, they lost to Phoenix 118-96 and Charlotte 126-103.

“I think all of us took pride (vs. Boston),” Utah guard Keyonte George said. “We all realize we’re all young, and there’s no reason why our energy level should be as low as it was last game. We felt like we just shot ourselves in the foot (at Charlotte).

“The good thing about the NBA is you get another chance either the next day or two days. We kind of just took the opportunity, and, you know, I talk about respecting the game. We actually respected the game.”

George scored a team-high 31 points against the Celtics, the first time in six games that Lauri Markkanen didn’t lead the club in scoring. Markkanen is averaging 31.1 points per game.

–Field Level Media

Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer has been added to a lawsuit that contends the defendants committed fraud by using a sustainability company to pay star Kawhi Leonard off the official NBA books.

The initial suit was filed in July, with the tech billionaire Ballmer added on Monday, Front Office Sports reported.

Eleven former investors of the company, then called Aspiration Partners, contend Ballmer used the business to bypass the league salary cap by channeling millions earmarked for Leonard through Aspiration’s bank accounts.

As a result, Ballmer and Aspiration founders committed fraud and aided and abetted in a fraud that negatively impacted the investors, the plaintiffs contend.

It was reported in September that Ballmer allegedly worked with company co-founder Joseph Sanberg to arrange a $50 million investment in Aspiration in 2021.

Aspiration went bankrupt and later was renamed Catona Climate Solutions. Front Office Sports reported that Ballmer’s investment was a “motivating factor in the plaintiffs either choosing to invest or keeping their investments in Catona,” according to the lawsuit.

“Plaintiffs would not have invested and/or kept their investment in Catona if Ballmer and Sanberg had disclosed the true nature of Ballmer’s investment,” per the revised lawsuit. “Absent Ballmer’s support, Catona could not have sustained the frauds set forth herein.”

According to a document obtained by ESPN contributor Pablo Torre and reportedly signed by Leonard, the six-time NBA All-Star was to receive $28 million in cash from Aspiration over the course of four years between 2022 and 2025, as long as he was playing for the Clippers.

Aspiration was to pay Leonard the millions for a “no-show” job.

Ballmer told ESPN in September that he was the victim of a fraudulent act and didn’t perpetrate one.

“These were guys who committed fraud,” Ballmer said in an interview following the accusations. “Look, they conned me. They conned me. I made an investment in these guys thinking it was on the up-and-up, and they conned me at this stage. I have no ability to predict why they might have done anything they did, let alone the specific contract with Kawhi.”

The NBA is conducting an investigation into the matter.

The current collective bargaining agreement allows for a fine of up to $4.5 million for a first offense of circumventing the salary cap, the forfeiture of one first-round draft pick, and/or the voiding of any contracts or transactions that violated league rules.

Leonard originally signed with the Clippers in 2019 before agreeing to a three-year contract extension worth around $150 million in early 2024.

The 34-year-old won the NBA Finals MVP award both times he earned NBA championship titles (2014 with the San Antonio Spurs, 2019 with the Toronto Raptors). He also has two NBA Defensive Player of the Year awards to his name.

He missed the 2021-22 campaign following knee surgery and has been limited in each of the past three seasons due to ongoing knee issues. He averaged 21.5 points and 5.9 rebounds in just 37 games last season.

In six games this season, he is averaging 24.3 points, 5.7 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 2.5 steals per game.

In his 14th season, the six-time All-Star has averaged 20.1 points and 6.4 rebounds in 739 games with the Spurs, Raptors and Clippers.

–Field Level Media

The Sacramento Kings are signing free agent big man Precious Achiuwa, ESPN reported on Tuesday.

Achiuwa, 26, averaged 6.6 points, 5.6 rebounds and 20.5 minutes in 57 games (10 starts) last season with the New York Knicks.

He has career averages of 7.6 points, 5.7 rebounds and 20.0 minutes in 320 games (72 starts) with the Miami Heat (2020-21), Toronto Raptors (2021-23) and Knicks (2024-25).

The Heat selected him with the 20th overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft out of Memphis.

Sacramento is expected to waive forward Isaac Jones to create a roster spot for Achiuwa, ESPN reported. Jones, 25, has played in three games (one start) this season and has totaled three points, two rebounds and one assist in 17 minutes. He played in 40 games last season and averaged 3.4 points, 1.4 rebounds and 7.6 minutes per contest.

The Kings are off to a 2-5 start heading into Wednesday’s home game against the Golden State Warriors.

–Field Level Media

RJ Barrett and Brandon Ingram are forming a dynamic duo for the Toronto Raptors, who will look for more heroics from the pair when they play host to the Milwaukee Bucks for the second time in 12 days on Tuesday.

The Bucks have a hero of their own, two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, who arrives in Canada after Milwaukee celebrated his 16-foot buzzer-beater on Monday night.

The Raptors lost their home opener 122-116 to the Bucks on Oct. 24. Milwaukee returns for Toronto’s fourth home game of the season after defeating the Indiana Pacers 117-115 on Monday in Indianapolis thanks to Antetokounmpo, who logged 33 points and 13 rebounds.

Toronto put together back-to-back wins for the first time this season after taking a 117-104 home decision over the depleted Memphis Grizzlies on Sunday.

Barrett led the Raptors with a season-best 27 points and Brandon Ingram scored 26. Toronto acquired Ingram in a February trade with the New Orleans Pelicans, but he didn’t play for his new team last season due to an ankle injury.

“I said it, with B.I. coming, shots are a lot easier for me,” Barrett said. “There’s another threat out there that the team has to worry about. I think we’re doing a good job of everybody sharing the ball, being in the flow.”

Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic noted that Barrett is shooting better this season from 3-point range.

“(Barrett) put in a lot of work in this summer,” Rajakovic said. “He’s not forcing anything that’s coming on the dribble or (trying) some tough shots. His teammates are doing a really good job. He has such a good feel to get in the right spot of the court, to get in the open window, and his teammates are doing a really good job of moving the ball and finding him open, so that’s great.”

There is no player doing more for the Raptors than Scottie Barnes. He had 19 points, a season-high 12 rebounds, eight assists and a season-best five blocked shots on Sunday.

Toronto rookie Collin Murray-Boyles added 15 points and a season-high nine rebounds to make up for some of the defense lost by the absence of center Jakob Poeltl, who missed his third straight game because of back tightness.

“I know the reason I’m here, play defense and do the little things,” Murray-Boyles said. “So I’m just trying to do that to the best of my ability, never shying away from who I am or who I was.”

Poeltl took part in practice on Monday and was listed as questionable for the Tuesday contest.

The Bucks will need to improve on the 18 turnovers they committed on Monday that led to 13 Indiana points. They needed Antetokounmpo to come through with the big fadeaway shot after Indiana tied the game with 14.6 seconds to play in a physical matchup.

“He bailed us out for sure,” Kyle Kuzma, who scored 15 points for Milwaukee, said of Antetokounmpo. “That was a hell of a shot. The way we played most of that game and down the stretch we could have lost for sure. Just for execution, we had turnovers, messed up a couple of times in zone. That’s what good teams do, you find ugly wins so you take them and that was a huge, huge shot by him. It really saved us.”

Antetokounmpo said, “You can live with it if you miss, you can’t live with it if you don’t shoot it. I can go to sleep if I take the shot, miss the shot, come in the locker room and look at the guys and say, ‘My bad, I’m going to make the next one.’ If you don’t shoot it, it kind of hurts.”

–Field Level Media