Although the Detroit Pistons have been unable to sign Jalen Duren so far, the team is still working on a deal for the 22-year of All-Star
Since the Detroit Pistons were bounced from the Eastern Conference Semifinals by the Cleveland Cavaliers in mid-May, that means the top seed from the East has been in offseason mode for nearly three and a half months by now.
In that timeframe, Pistons President of Basketball Operations Trajan Langdon has made sure to shuffle the role players on Detroit’s squad to give Cade Cunningham a better chance to succeed in the playoffs, but there is still one major offseason agenda item left to complete for Langdon— re-signing Jalen Duren.
At 22 years old after an All-Star caliber 2025-26 campaign, Duren is looking for a considerable salary hike, which makes sense considering he was an All-NBA Third Team member as well. Along that line, Duren is eligible for a max contract, but the Pistons are reluctant to agree that 25% of their salary cap should be spent on JD over the next four to five seasons. Therein lies the discrepancy between the two sides that has caused Duren’s restricted free agency to become one of the bigger stories of the NBA’s offseason.
In order to help digest what is (or isn’t) happening, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst and Tim MacMahon spoke about where the Duren contract situation currently stands and how another Western Conference team fits into the picture.
”What the Kings would want is to sign-and-trade for Jalen Duren and send Sabonis to Detroit, but that’s not happening,” MacMahon said. “Which, again, that gets us back to, okay, the qualifying offer is 9.6 million and you talk about unprecedented, these are ballpark figures, but my understanding is that the Pistons offer is somewhere in that five for 180-plus range. You know, 180, I don’t have the exact numbers. These are ballpark figures.”
If Duren was to sign a five-year contract worth $180 million in totality, then the big man would be slated to take home $36 million per season, which falls in line with the range that the Pistons are reportedly at. Duren, on the other hand, is looking for a deal that pays him around $40 million each year, so the gap in salary is still real even if it is not a substantial amount of money— it’s enough to keep the Pistons and Duren at odds for this long.
The clock is ticking on the start of training camp and the pre-season, so the Pistons would like to have Duren’s new contract worked out as soon as possible. To be candid, the Pistons would have preferred to have signed JD well before now, but the negotiation process was not as streamlined as many expected. Once Duren’s deliberation period is sorted out, then Detroit can move on to a contract extension for Ausar Thompson as he enters his fourth season in the pros. It will be intriguing to see what the term and value of Thompson’s deal comes out to and how it compares to the contract that Duren ends up receiving considering the timing and similarity of the deals since the Pistons view each as a pillar of the franchise.
