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Jalen Duren is coming off the best season of his young career. In 2025-26, the Detroit Pistons center earned his first All-Star nod and an All-NBA Third Team selection, averaging 19.5 points and 10.5 rebounds per game on 65% shooting from the field. He was a dominant’ interior force for a Pistons team that won 60 games and clinched the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference.
That breakout season set up a massive summer for him and the franchise, as Duren’s four-year, $19.4 million rookie contract expired, making him a restricted free agent this offseason.
With the Pistons able to match any offer Duren signs elsewhere, Detroit was in the driver’s seat. But the sides weren’t close on a deal early in the process, and now we’re nearly a month into free agency, and a deal still hasn’t gotten done.
On Tuesday, ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne spoke on “NBA Today” about the ongoing contract negotiations between the Pistons and Duren, and explained why other rival teams that initially showed interest may have backed out.
“I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon because I just talked to someone who said that negotiations on Jalen Duren are at a standstill right now. It could take deep into August. It could take quite a while,” Shelburne said. “I think that’s because teams that tried to get Jalen Duren, the Lakers were one of them, they just had a sense that Detroit was going to match anything that was offered to him.”
“They can’t afford to lose him, and yet it’s going to take a long time because they can’t agree on what his value is and how you can use that value in building the team.”
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Detroit’s initial offer for Duren was reportedly “well below” the max deal he’s pushing for. The Pistons can sign him up to $30% of the team’s salary cap, which would be a five-year deal worth around $287 million, averaging roughly $57.4 million annually. That kind of deal would put him among the highest-paid centers in the NBA. With Detroit unwilling to meet that price so far, Duren opted to test the market.
That opened the door for other teams to make their pitch, and among the hottest teams on the market was the Los Angeles Lakers. With roughly $52 million in cap space after LeBron James decided to leave in free agency, the Lakers had enough to make a real go at Duren.
Ultimately, however, the Lakers didn’t want to wait around just for Detroit to match their offer. Instead, they pulled off a sign-and-trade with Utah to get their 7-foot-2 center Walker Kessler, while also signing stretch big Sandro Mamukelashvili and veteran center Kevon Looney.
Those deals, combined with the additions of guards Collin Sexton and Quentin Grimes, ate up all of the Lakers’ cap space, effectively ending LA’s pursuit of Duren.
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For Detroit, the most dangerous bidder may be out of the race, but that doesn’t mean a resolution is close.
The 2026-27 season tips off in mid-October, and it feels like a deal between Duren and Detroit will eventually get done. But when exactly that happens, and what the final dollar amount will be, remain unknown.
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