Jalen Duren has until October 1st to accept the qualifying offer from the Detroit Pistons, which would make him an unrestricted free agent after next season.
Duren is expected to sign before that happens, so hopefully we’ll see a deal within the next week or two, as the real deadline for him to sign comes a few days before October.
Pistons’ Media Day has been announced for September 28th, the day before training camp opens, and if Duren isn’t signed by then, things will get ugly.
Jalen Duren needs to sign before Pistons’ Media Day
The Duren drama has already dominated the summer narrative around the Pistons and is threatening to leak into fall.
Even if Duren signed today, he’s still going to get plenty of questions about it at media day and talk of his contract is going to unfortunately dominate discussion until the season starts.
If this is still unresolved by media day, you can expect every question to every player to be about Duren in some way.
If Duren isn’t signed, which means he won’t be at media day, his absence will be a 1,000-ton elephant in the room when reporters are interviewing his teammates, who are probably already getting sick of hearing about it.
This exchange can be tedious enough with players often giving the same canned answers to questions, but if Duren isn’t there, you can expect it to be far worse, as we’ll have to hear some version of the same question asked 15 different ways.
At the very least, it will be an awkward scene that the Pistons would rather avoid.
The longer this lingers, the more chance there is for it to matter
I am still of the opinion that if Duren signs in the next few weeks, none of this will matter.
No one remembers contract negotiations once they are finished, and I am sure Duren’s teammates aren’t at all upset that he is trying to max out his money, as they’d all be doing the same thing if there were in his position.
But if they have to answer non-stop questions about it the day before training camp starts, then there is some threat off this drama leaking into places the Pistons don’t want it to be, which is in the locker room.
It’s all fun and games when your teammate is holding out in the offseason, but it’s an entirely different vibe if that person is absent once the work starts.
Things will get ugly on social media and in the media in general if the Duren situation is not resolved by the time media day rolls around.
No one wants that, so let’s hope this gets done soon.
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