Cade Cunningham's Floater Is Key To Higher Efficiency In Half-Court

Cade Cunningham leads his first offensive possession in Intuit Dome, receiving a high pick from Jalen Duren. The Los Angeles Clippers open up with Ivica Zubac in drop coverage, taking away a clean look at the rim and baiting Cunningham into a pull-up two. Instead, Cunningham gets to the dotted line and throws up a soft floater to give Detroit a 2-0 lead.

Kris Dunn forces Cunningham to reject another high screen from Duren in the following possession. With Dunn attached to Cunningham’s hip and Zubac again in drop coverage to prevent a rim attempt, Cunningham utilizes his strength and size to hold Dunn on his side as he returns to the dotted line, which is around nine feet away from the rim.

Cunningham uses his 7’0” wingspan to get a floater up over a contest from Dunn, and his incredible soft touch a few feet from the rim gets him his second straight made floater. He’s never rushed, utilizing the threat of a Duren lob to keep Zubac retreating until Cunningham gets precisely where he wants to go.

This is the key to Cunningham's next step as an elite, half-court scorer.

Through Cunningham’s first four seasons in the NBA, he’s shown to be a versatile scorer. A jumbo point guard with the ability to score off the dribble from the mid-range, improved pull-up three-point shooting, and his eagerness to post up smaller guards and mismatches down-low, Cunningham is a threat from multiple areas on the floor.

Despite his versatility, the star guard's efficiency as a finisher has remained a key area for improvement. This is not to be confused with his ability to get to the rim. Cunningham is fifth in the NBA in drives per game and lives in the paint, but his inability to consistently finish these drives has left a lot of meat on the bone.

According to Synergy, Cunningham is in the 18th percentile finishing at the rim, scoring just 1.04 points per possession. While Cunningham is having a career-best efficiency season this year, with a 55.9 true shooting percentage, he is still behind some of the best scorers in the league and still slightly below league average efficiency.

This has everything to do with Cunningham’s finishing around the rim. He’s improved in every other area on the court while enhancing his mindset regarding his shot diet. Last week, I asked Cunningham about utilizing his floater more in the halfcourt, and his answer was very insightful.

“You know, shooting the mid-range over and over and over, obviously all the analytics people don’t really love that shot”, Cunningham said. “It’s great to have in the bag, but scoring at the rim and scoring from three, those are the two high-priority ones…I think just getting to the floater has been good money for me this year”.

The numbers back up Cunningham’s newfound mentality, reaping the benefits with improved efficiency this year.

This season, Cunningham is taking a career-low amount of his field goals attempts from long-two range, with just 5.3 percent of his shots coming here. Instead, Cunningham has traded those looks for pull-up threes, where he’s shooting a career-high 4.1 attempts.

Cunningham also shoots 35.5 percent of his career shots from the floater/short mid-range area, nearly nine percent higher than at any other point in his career. Cunningham is taking smarter, better shots this season and he’s reaping the benefits.

Cunningham is one of the best players in the league at hitting floaters. According to Synergy, he is in the 78th percentile on floaters this season, scoring 1.02 points per possession. His touch has consistently been a strength in the short-range area, as he is also in the 66th percentile on hook shots, scoring 1.08 points per possession.

The problem is that Cunningham doesn’t utilize this weapon nearly enough. According to Synergy, Cunningham had utilized a floater only 92 times this season, which would rank in the 47th percentile of usage.

Considering Cunningham's touch and how effective he has been from this area, it's an area of the floor he needs to use more; not just shooting more floaters but also looking for ways to turn contested rim attempts into cleaner looks from one dribble further away.

Before the season, I asked Cunningham about how he worked to improve his finishing around the rim.

“The floater for sure… I think that’ll help me a lot as far as not always having to jump into bigger guys or shoot as many contested layups”.

Cunningham mentioned one reason his finishing numbers remain so low: He still takes challenging shots around the rim instead of shortening his drive and shooting an open floater.

Take the same game mentioned earlier against the Clippers.

In the clip above, the Clippers are still utilizing drop coverage with Zubac against Cunningham, emphasizing the prevention of clean looks at the rim. Cunningham picks up his dribble and starts his layup attempt from beyond the charge circle, and he has to take a running left-hand layup over Zubac's arms four feet from the rim.

Stopping on the dime once Dunn retreats to Duren and taking a clean floater for the dotted line is a better look for Cunningham, one he’s more than capable of hitting. This eliminates the poor shot attempts directly at the rim, and should also increase his overall efficiency because of how effective his floater is.

A significant reason for Cunningham’s low finishing numbers is simply the difficulty of the layup attempts he forces himself to take.

It would be disingenuous of me not to mention drawing free throws would also help his finishing numbers. If you asked Cunningham and his team around him, I'm sure they would tell you his awful whistle contributes more to his below-average finishing numbers.

And they would be correct.

Cunningham doesn’t draw nearly enough fouls for how often he finds himself in the paint, and at the rim. Of the eight NBA players to have at least 15 drives per game, Cunningham is tied with LaMelo Ball for last with 5.0 free throw attempts per game. The only players with more total drives than Cunningham this season are Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Brunson, and Trae Young; all of whom shoot at least two more free throws per game than Cunningham—a 40% difference, which is rather significant.

Cunningham cannot control him getting a terrible whistle. Hopefully, as his name becomes more prominent in the NBA and the Pistons have more success, he will receive more respect from the officials. What he can control, however, is taking easier shots and utilizing a shot that he is genuinely fantastic at.

Taking more floaters also opens up the rest of the game for him. For example, Young does a great job of blending his floaters with lobs, which keeps big men constantly guessing and in lousy positioning. Cunningham and Duren already have great chemistry, and this would create even more openings for the connection to thrive.

Once your floater threat appears on defensive game plans, Cunningham can use it and his elite pacing to open up cleaner drivers to the rim. Get a big to play higher in drop, opening up both lobs and allowing Cunningham to accelerate around the big.

This could even get Cunningham more free-throw attempts! A feared floater will have defenders on alert, which Cunningham can use to his advantage by pump-faking and jumping into contact—something the guards mentioned earlier do a lot to get calls.

Cunningham has emerged this year as an offensive superstar in the making. The shot diet has improved, and the overall efficiency has improved.

Upping the floater volume would be a final touch to Cade Cunningham’s growing offensive game.