The Detroit Pistons’ future could be very expensive

The Detroit Pistons have one of the most exciting young cores in the NBA in Cade Cunningham, Jaden Ivey, Ausar Thompson and Jalen Duren.

If all of these players reach their respective potential, this could be the group that finally leads this franchise to consistent winning and playoff appearances.

They are currently all on rookie deals, with Cunningham first up to get a big rookie extension, especially if he has a breakout season. Then it will be Jaden Ivey and Jalen Duren on the clock followed by Ausar Thompson, so this team’s payroll could be a LOT higher in just a few seasons even before they look to add another star.

And when you get to the second set of extensions, the sky is the limit, as some of the numbers we are seeing for star players’ upcoming supermax deals are daunting.

The Detroit Pistons’ future could be very expensive

ESPN’s Bobby Marks (SUBSCRIPTION) broke down some of the players who will soon be eligible for supermax extensions with their current teams.

The new CBA has made things even better for stars and given them financial incentive to stay with their teams. And boy is there incentive. We aren’t far away from having the first player in the NBA making $70 million per season.

Here are some of the estimated earnings for the next group of supermax extensions:

• Luka Doncic ($70M per year)
• Shai Gilgeous-Alexander ($64M per year)
• Jaren Jackson Jr. ($63M per year)
• De’Aaron Fox ($61M per year)
• Bam Adebayo ($61M per year)
• Jamal Murray ($60M per year)
• Brandon Ingram ($60M per year)
• Pascal Siakam ($57M per year)

These are all players who have been at an All-Star or All-NBA level, so if the Detroit Pistons end with even one such player out of their core, they’d be happy. It’s most likely to be Cade Cunningham, who could be looking at Luka-like contract numbers for his second extension if he stays in Detroit.

But if two or three of these young Pistons become stars before their second extension, it’s not going to be easy to keep them all together, which would be a great problem to have.

This is the only rub of having all of your best players on the same timeline, as the max deals may not be spread out enough to make them feasible.

Again, this would be a good problem to have, as it means the Detroit Pistons have a couple of future stars, but the new CBA has made it harder to keep more than two of them while still filling out a competitive roster around them, so it’s going to take more creativity to build a team.