Tired of hearing about Jalen Duren yet? Me too!
But the drama continues and has taken new twists, as it was revealed recently that Duren is feeling disrespected by the paltry $190 million offer the Pistons have reportedly made.
Who could blame him?!? I know I could never live on that little, so Duren is completely wise to torpedo his entire financial career because he wants $40 million a year instead of $38 million a year.
I hope he is paying his agent overtime, as he is earning every penny!
In case it wasn’t blatantly obvious this was sarcasm, you can strike everything I just said and reverse it, as Duren is making terrible money choices, terrible basketball choices and should probably put his agent and his phone into one of Musk’s rockets and shoot it into the Sun.
This still has a chance to end amicably, but on October 1st, this drama is going to take a new twist and there are two possibilities.
Jalen Duren has until October.... or March
If Duren wants to go nuclear, he’ll accept the Pistons’ qualifying offer before the October 1st deadline, which would make him an unrestricted free agent after next season and all but guarantee the Pistons trade him before that happens.
This is the worst-case scenario for everyone involved, as Duren risks a ton of money, and the Pistons are stuck with an unhappy center who has one foot out the door.
The other option is that the Pistons push back the deadline for him to accept the offer to March 1st, which they could do.
This option comes with its own set of risks: If Duren failed to get a deal done before that deadline, he’d be a man without a team, go back into restricted free agency and wouldn’t be able to play in the NBA until he signed.
I doubt he wants that and am even more doubtful either side would let it get that far, but if the Pistons wanted to relieve some of the pressure of this situation, they could buy themselves more time.
As much as this has been talked about and agonized over, it’s still hard to envision a world in which Duren isn’t on the Pistons next season, as the other options are so risky he’d have to be the most over-confident person in the world to think he could come out ahead, as even a full max offer next offseason would only have him breaking even after giving up such a huge chunk next year.
This will end at some point, but it may not be in October if Duren isn’t yet ready to sever ties by taking the qualifying offer.
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