It is now nearing the middle of September, and Jalen Duren still doesn’t have a contract with the Detroit Pistons.
We’ve seen restricted free agents hold out this long and even longer in recent years, but none of them had near the accolades that Duren has as a 22-year-old.
Last year, Josh Giddey didn’t sign until the 9th of September, and Jonathan Kuminga didn’t ink his two-year deal (please fire your agent, Jonathan) until the 30th of September, so there is precedent for restricted free agency to linger into late September.
But this Duren situation is different and is reaching a point where things could get really ugly if this doesn’t end soon.
Jalen Duren is the first of his kind
The big difference between Duren and those listed above (along with Eric Bledsoe, who also held out until late September recently) is that he is not only 22 years old, but made both the All-Star and All-NBA teams last season.
We’ve never seen a player of his age and accolades fail to get a contract, and in most cases, it came right away.
But Duren is special in a couple of other ways that have prevented the Pistons from just rubber stamping his deal as they may have done in the past.
The first is that Duren probably shouldn’t have made the All-NBA team but did because there were so many players who were ineligible due to not reaching the minimum for games played.
That’s not Duren’s fault, and you can’t penalize him for things out of his control, but we also can’t act like those awards mean as much when there were so many mainstays left out.
The second is that Duren stunk in the playoffs, and this clearly matters to the Pistons. Detroit jettisoned the soul of their team in Isaiah Stewart, partly because he hadn’t been healthy or performed well in two playoff runs.
Detroit believes in Duren, but they can’t pay him like a max superstar when he’s yet to show that he can be effective in the playoffs, it’s that simple.
Duren is the most decorated player to ever make it this deep into restricted free agency, but you can see why, and it still hasn’t stopped the Pistons from offering a very fair deal that represents Duren’s current market value according to a league that didn’t seem that interested in him this offseason.
We don’t normally see All-NBA players struggle this much to get paid, but Duren is a unique situation, which is why Detroit is standing their ground in negotiations.
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