After writing about him every day for the last month (at least), no one is happier about Jalen Duren signing with the Detroit Pistons than me. Well, except maybe Duren.
What should have been an easy signing turned into a contentious negotiation, but the entire time, there was only one logical outcome, as it would be too risky for Duren to turn down that much money and too risky for the Pistons to look for a Plan B this late in the offseason.
It wasn't handled well by the Pistons' front office from the beginning, starting with last offseason when they could have extended him early for a fraction of the cost, as they did with Ausar Thompson.
It continued into this summer, when the Pistons offered as little as possible at first, waited for Duren to break, and when he didn't, raised their offer. They could have just offered $200 million or something close to it from the beginning if they were so desperate to keep Duren, and if not, they should have just traded him.
Instead, they waited all summer, made one of their key players unhappy (though $200 million will certainly help ease that) and kept him away from his teammates for the entire offseason just for the faint possibility of saving a few bucks. If they had not wanted to pay him that much, I would have understood, but they were clearly willing to, so should have just done it from the beginning.
I am on record many, many times as saying that amount of money for Duren is probably on the wrong side of too much, but that the Pistons didn't have many other compelling options. Knowing that, they should have wrapped this up early, gotten their player into camp on time and kept this whole mess from happening in the first place.
All of this drama for a few extra of a billionaire's dollars that they ended up giving Duren anyway. Dumb.
But no one will care about the front office, and Trajan Langdon won't be the one taking the floor in Little Caesar's Arena. Duren may have won the negotiation, but he'll be the one to carry the burden of it.
Jalen Duren is the one who has to perform now
Duren now has the weight of being a $40 million per year player, which comes with expectations he's yet to face in his career as a guy coming off a rookie deal.
It was easy to overlook some of his flaws as a player when he was making a tiny percentage of the cap sheet, but now that he's getting paid like a star, he needs to be one.
It's not just about winning over the fans who are going to boo him, but he's now going to be judged through a completely different lens by everyone, including the media.
That's not going to end until Duren has a good performance in the playoffs, so even though it was the front office that botched this negotiation, it will be Duren that feels the heat.
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