The Detroit Pistons are inching closer to the start of training camp, but All-Star center Jalen Duren remains unsigned
With every day that passes during the offseason, the spotlight on Jalen Duren’s contract situation with the Detroit Pistons keeps growing brighter since he’s the biggest name left on the market without a deal.
Entering the offseason, Pistons President of Basketball Operations Trajan Langdon spoke about how he looked forward to reaching an agreement with Duren’s representation, and the negotiating process seemed to be more of a formality than anything at the time. But after Duren opened the free agency period by scheduling meetings with both the Los Angeles Lakers and the Sacramento Kings, the All-Star center’s restricted free agency process took a decidedly more drawn out turn.
Neither the Kings nor the Lakers signed JD to an offer sheet, and the big man has essentially stood at the bargaining table with the Pistons brass ever since. To some, the fact that Duren and other restricted free agents remain on the market is a condemnation of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement that’s in place, but the NBA recently put out a message with a focus on dispelling that notion.
Regardless of whether the current system helps or hurts players like Duren, the 22-year old is looking to secure a major payday after landing on the All-NBA Third Team this past season. In terms of his progress in doing so, The Stein Line’s Jake Fischer broke down the latest in the Duren saga and conveyed what he’s been hearing on the situation since there’s been no public updates.
“I talked with someone today with some level of knowledge of the situation who still believes that he’s on track for a four-year, $160 million deal, something in the 40 AAV range.,” Fischer said. “He’s clearly going to want some type of money closer to what Walker Kessler got than what Mitchell Robinson got, just to use two linchpins of the center market from this summer. But I think when all things are said and done and he makes life-changing money, I do see an opportunity for this to get mended, but we’ll see. The tricky thing coming out of this is the messaging coming out of Detroit that the Pistons view Ausar Thompson as their second best player and not Jalen Duren.”
As Fischer alluded to, the Pistons have an opportunity to extend Thompson this summer all the way up until the first day of the regular season, which is Oct. 20. By that time, Detroit is likely to have already worked out a long-term extension with AT, and if that contract is more lucrative or expedient than Duren’s deal then it could lead to some interesting conversations within the Pistons locker room.
“You just don’t want to hear that if you’re Jalen Duren, and now Ausar Thompson’s extension talks and his rookie scale stuff will happen before the season, and he’s almost certainly going to get extended, and if that just happens so quickly and this has been a whole year dragged out with Duren, it will be a tricky thing to monitor moving forward.”
But from a basketball standpoint, the Pistons view Duren as one of the pillars of their franchise after he finished second for the Most Improved Player award following the 2025-26 campaign. Duren’s development was a key piece to Detroit’s massive jump from a 14-win unit to a 60-win team in just two years, so the Pistons plan to move forward with all three of their pillars firmly intact once Cade Cunningham’s included in the bunch.
