The Detroit Pistons have played back-to-back overtime games on consecutive nights and I feel about as exhausted as the players as both have been emotionally draining.

This has been true for most of the Pistons’ season, as they’ve become must-see TV, NBA League Pass darlings for fans who want to watch exciting, bizarre games.

The last five have come down to overtime or the final possession and these games have been decided by a total of 13 points, seven of which came in last night’s overtime loss to Milwaukee.

But there was one more number that stood out from last night, and that is the number of free throw attempts, as Giannis Antetokounmpo had seventeen, more than the entire Pistons team combined (13).

This is nothing new, as the Pistons have gotten bad whistles in recent years, we just didn’t notice it because the games weren’t close and didn’t really matter.

Now that the Pistons are more competitive, this free throw disparity is killing them.

First off, I’m in no way saying that free throws or refereeing cost the Pistons all these close games.

Detroit hasn’t done itself any favors with premature turnovers, missed free throws, late scoring droughts and mental mistakes of its own.

But it doesn’t help that they can’t be called.

The Pistons are 25th in the NBA in free throw attempts per game, which in itself proves nothing. They average just over 20 free throws per game, while the top two teams in attempts, Denver and LA Lakers, get 28.3 and 27.5, respectively.

This makes sense because they have dominant centers who happen to be superstars and superstars get called. Both are veteran teams who know how to work the referees, something the Pistons are still learning.

But when you dig deeper into the numbers, something isn’t adding up, as the Pistons aren’t a three-point team that never gets into the paint. They rank just 20th in 3-point attempts per game and 10th in points from 2-pointers, so Detroit has lived in the paint and midrange, the areas where most mistakes are made.

The Pistons are 15th in points in the paint per game, so even though they only have one true center, Detroit gets a lot of their points down low. Their 48.3 points per game in the paint are more than the Nuggets, who shoot an average of eight more free throws per game.

There is one player in particular who doesn’t get many calls, and his name is Cade Cunningham.

Cade Cunningham took a whopping 34 shots against the Bucks last night and had four free throws. Giannis also took 34 shots for the Bucks, but was rewarded with 17 free throws.

Obviously Giannis’ game is different, but both players attract a lot of attention and contact, but they are rewarded with free throws at a much higher rate.

This applies to almost all stars who take a lot of shot attempts for their teams.

Cade Cunnigham is 7th in the NBA in shot attempts per game with just over 20, not far behind Luka Doncic, who takes 23 shots per game to lead the league.

But Cunningham ranks just 50th in free throw attempts, a staggering number that doesn’t reflect his usage compared to other players.

The six players ahead of Cade in attempts all take far more free throws per game than him, with Giannis getting more than 10, Luka 7, Tyrese Maxey 6.43, Jayson Tatum 8.92 and Jaylen Brown 8 to lead the way.

Cade Cunningham averages four free throw attempts per game.

You don’t even need the numbers because the eye test tells you everything. I’m as biased as they come, but there have been countless plays this year where Cade was blatantly hacked and didn’t get a call. I’m not talking about touch fouls or 50/50 calls, I’m talking about undeniable Rick Mahorn style mistakes that anyone with vision can see.

Cade was literally held to the ground on a jump ball by Bam Adebayo with the referee’s face about 10 inches away from the action. No call.

He gets hit on almost every shot he makes in the paint, and defenders are allowed to hack him with impunity, which is one of the reasons he has so many turnovers.

This may sound like sour grapes or whining, but the numbers don’t lie and something is wrong when one player shoots more free throws than your entire team.

Something needs to change as Cade and the Detroit Pistons are not being rewarded in a way that other teams are. We all know superstars get calls, something we have to begrudgingly accept, and since Detroit doesn’t have one yet, maybe that’s the problem, but it’s a problem.