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The Detroit Pistons and Jalen Duren still can’t find common ground on an extension, as both parties reportedly keep negotiating without much success. Per ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, talks remain stuck and could drag into August.
The Pistons want him back, that part isn’t in question, and they’re prepared to match anything another team throws at him, but the two sides are still far apart on value. Sam Amick of The Athletic reported earlier that Duren wasn’t impressed by Detroit’s opening offer, and Michael Scotto has Duren’s camp targeting something close to $40.0 million a year.
To be fair, Duren earned himself a payday with his season performance. 19.5 points, 10.5 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 1.6 combined steals and blocks, all in just 28.2 minutes a night, on 65.0% shooting. First All-Star nod. Helped Detroit go 60-22 and grab the No. 1 seed in the East. Made All-NBA Third Team.
That All-NBA nod technically opens the door to a five-year, $287.1 million max, but nobody actually thinks that number is real, though, not even Duren’s side, from what’s being reported.
And then the playoffs happened, which is exactly why Detroit is dragging its feet here. Duren fell off to 10.2 points and 8.5 rebounds on 51.4% shooting across 14 games, and the Pistons kept benching him in fourth quarters for Isaiah Stewart or Paul Reed. He got pushed around by physical playoff defenses and couldn’t make teams pay for sagging off him near the rim.
Worth putting an asterisk on the All-NBA thing too. Giannis, Tatum, LeBron, Curry, Jalen Williams, Haliburton, Ant Edwards, Sabonis, Anthony Davis, a huge chunk of the league’s best players got knocked out of eligibility by injuries and the 65-game rule. Duren had a good year. In a normal, healthy season, does he even sniff All-NBA? Probably not.
The Lakers and Kings were the two outside teams tied to him earliest, but the Lakers went and got Walker Kessler, so they’re basically out. That leaves three real paths here: Detroit gets a deal done, another teams gets aggressive, or Duren rolls the dice on the qualifying offer.
1. He Re-Signs With The Pistons After The Drama
This is still the outcome I’d bet on, mostly because the Pistons hold all the cards. Duren’s restricted, the Pistons can match anything, and Chris Haynes has reported the front office has zero interest in trading him. Detroit’s been telling other teams the same thing all along: they just want to get a long-term deal signed.
Five years, $180.0 million works out to $36.0 million a year. That’s short of his reported $40.0 million ask, but it’s a good chunk above wherever Detroit reportedly started this thing. Feels like the number both sides land on because neither has quite enough leverage to force the other’s hand.
Duren’s pitch is obvious: 19.5 and 10.5, 65.0% shooting, the All-Star game, the All-NBA badge. Detroit’s counter is just as obvious: the playoff disappearing act, no jump shot, limited passing, and the fact that he still isn’t the anchor of their defense.
That last part matters more than people give it credit for. Centers typically cash in big when they space the floor or control a defense at an elite level. Duren isn’t doing either yet. Zero three-point attempts all season. And Detroit’s defensive rating was actually better with him off the floor (106.6 without him versus 110.5 with him). Small sample, only 12 games without him, so I wouldn’t hang the whole case on it, but it undercuts the idea that this defense runs through Duren.
His scoring also leans hard on Cade Cunningham. Duren’s a great lob threat, crashes the glass, finishes well around the rim, but he’s not manufacturing 19.5 points on his own. Cunningham’s the one bending defenses and putting the ball where Duren can just go up and finish.
That’s still real value, to be clear. Duren’s only 22, already has natural chemistry with Cunningham, and finished fourth in the league in field goal percentage. Detroit also already moved on from Isaiah Stewart, so losing Duren too would blow a massive hole at center, and replacing that production would cost close to the same money without the age or the ceiling.
I just don’t see him as a $50.0 million guy. He’s not Jokic, not Wembanyama, not even Evan Mobley on defense. He’s a very good young center who had one great regular season sandwiched around one rough playoff run. Five years and $180.0 million is already the Pistons betting on the version of Duren who tightens up defensively, grows as a passer, and stops vanishing once the games get physical in April.
That’s a fair offer. If Duren still feels shortchanged at $36.0 million a season, I’m honestly not sure what number he thinks matches his actual body of work right now.
2. The Kings Get Creative For A Sign-And-Trade Deal
Sacramento Kings Receive: Jalen Duren (sign-and-trade, four years, $177.0 million)
Detroit Pistons Receive: Zach LaVine, 2028 first-round pick (top-eight protected)
A Duren sign-and-trade is still in the cards, though it wouldn’t be as clean as a straight one-for-one. Still, it’s the version that lines up with the reporting. Chris Haynes said Sacramento was planning to sit down with Duren once free agency opened, and The Athletic flagged a Kings sign-and-trade as the most realistic outside option on the table.
Earlier versions of this rumor had Sabonis heading to Detroit, but LaVine’s deal might actually make more sense now. He exercised his $49.0 million player option and hits unrestricted free agency after 2026-27, which gets Detroit a scoring punch without locking into another long-term number.
For Sacramento, this is a full bet on Duren as their center of the future. They’d hand him the four-year, $177.0 million max offer he’s chasing, get significantly younger at the position, and finally start pivoting away from the expensive, stuck-in-place roster they’ve been running out for years.
There’s not a ton left to protect on the Kings’ side at this point anyway. LaVine, Sabonis, De’Andre Hunter, Keegan Murray, and Malik Monk are already combining for more than $189.0 million, and Sacramento still isn’t sniffing real contention. LaVine alone is $49.0 million. Sabonis is $45.5 million.
Duren’s not a magic fix for all that, but he’d at least swap in a 22-year-old All-Star for another veteran on the back end of his prime. And it clears a path for the Kings to explore moving Sabonis separately and actually build something with Darius Acuff Jr., Murray, and Duren going forward.
Detroit’s side of this is way riskier. LaVine can still create his own shot and get buckets off the dribble, which is exactly the kind of secondary scoring the Pistons need next to Cunningham. The expiring money also keeps their books flexible down the line.
The catch is LaVine turns 31, has a lengthy injury history, and doesn’t fix Detroit’s defense at all. They’d also be losing their starting center and suddenly leaning heavily on John Collins and Paul Reed up front. That’s why the first-rounder has to be part of it. Detroit shouldn’t hand Duren his preferred destination and eat a $49.0 million contract for nothing in return.
Personally, I’d still rather the Pistons just pay Duren a sensible number and keep him. But Sacramento’s the team most likely to get desperate enough to actually meet his $40.0 million ask, with an average of $44.2 million per year in this deal, as that’s the maximum that an external team can offer Duren in his restricted free agency.
They’ve already spent years building an expensive roster that can’t defend and can’t really win, so one more risky swing wouldn’t exactly wreck a great situation that doesn’t currently exist.
3. Duren Bets On Himself And Takes The Qualifying Offer
This is the wild-card option, and it’s genuinely risky, but it’s starting to feel like a true option with every passing day. Duren could just take the one-year qualifying offer, play out 2026-27 for roughly $9.0 million, and hit unrestricted free agency next summer with total control over his next team.
Quentin Grimes ran this exact play last year. He turned down long-term offers from Philly, took the one-year, $8.7 million qualifying offer, got trade veto power, and reached unrestricted free agency in 2026. Ended up signing a four-year, $60.0 million deal with the Lakers after putting up 13.4 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 3.3 assists for a $15.0 million annual salary.
It worked out for Grimes. He got out of restricted free agency, picked his spot, and still walked away with $60.0 million guaranteed, even though he was pushing for over $30.0 million per season from the 76ers last summer. Philly offered him a four-year, $39.0 million deal, and he walked away with almost double that after one season.
Duren could talk himself into an even bigger swing. Another season in the 19-and-10 range could mean a second All-Star nod, another All-NBA look, and a much hotter open market, with no Detroit right-to-match hanging over every offer he gets.
The upside is real. If he tightens up defensively, repeats the regular-season numbers, and finally shows up in the playoffs, that $40.0 million annual number becomes a lot more realistic.
The downside, though, is ugly. One injury wrecks the whole plan. A slightly worse regular season makes this year look like a peak, not a floor. Another bad playoff showing just confirms everything Detroit’s already worried about with paying a non-shooting center big money.
And he can’t just assume another All-NBA berth is coming. This year’s version happened because an unusual number of better, more established players got knocked out by injuries and the 65-game rule. He earned it under the rules as written, but making Third Team this year doesn’t mean he’s actually a top-15 player in the league.
Jonathan Kuminga is a decent cautionary story here. The Hawks declined his $24.3 million team option after he couldn’t show his production matched the price tag. He went looking for another big payday and instead got a reported two-year, $20.0 million offer from the Lakers, just $10.0 million a year when he was pushing for $25.0 million.
Duren could hit next summer expecting $40.0 million and find out the league sees him more like $20.0 million to $25.0 million. Centers who can’t shoot, can’t really create, and aren’t locking down the paint don’t always spark bidding wars, no matter how athletic they are. Even a paint lockdown like Walker Kessler got a $32 million annual salary from the Lakers in a four-year, $130 million deal, and that’s one very risky price tag already.
The qualifying offer would give Duren way more control over where he lands, sure. But it also means putting more than $170.0 million in guaranteed money on the line for a hunch.
That’s an enormous bet to make when there’s already a five-year offer sitting on the table. Duren might think he’s one big season away from max-guy status. Detroit clearly doesn’t see it that way, and so far, nobody else around the league has exactly rushed in to prove them wrong either.
I think both sides cool off eventually and get to something around five years, $180.0 million. The Kings scenario becomes real if Duren won’t budge off $40.0 million. The qualifying offer only happens if this relationship genuinely sours.
Duren had a great regular season. But he needs to see this clearly: he’s not a superstar, he hasn’t proven he can show up in the playoffs, and he’s nowhere close to being worth $287.1 million either as an All-NBA selection.
Signing a strong long-term deal wouldn’t be Duren losing this negotiation. It’d just be taking the number his actual season supports before one bad year makes that number a lot smaller.
