Jalen Duren got off to a slow start, but his improvement has been a big part of the Detroit Pistons’ recent surge.
Duren has been a force down low catching lobs, but has also gotten involved with his passing, notching 5+ assists in six straight games, a feat that hasn’t been accomplished by a Pistons center since the great Bob Lanier.
Duren finally seems to get that he can be a two-way force and affect the game with more than his dunking, as he has averaged 13.8 points, 11.7 rebounds, 5.6 assists and a steal per game over his last six.
His dominance of late hasn’t gone unnoticed by his teammates, nor the wider basketball community, and he’s been drawing some lofty comparisons.
Rasheed Wallace compares Jalen Duren to Chris Webber
NBA champion Rasheed Wallace recently compared Jalen Duren to former Pistons forward and Michigan Wolverine legend Chris Webber.
I was taken aback by this at first, but there are some similarities that are obvious.
Both guys are physically similar at 6-foot-10 and between 245-250 lbs. They also entered the league with physical strength that belied their age, with elite athleticism that sometimes makes you forget that they are huge.
A young C-Webb was unreal at the rim and regularly filled the highlight reels with dunks early in his career, same as Duren. This dunk in particular does bring back a young C-Webb, who was also a physical force.
I’ve watched this roughly 7.5 million times today. The pass, the catch, the Blaha, it has it all. https://t.co/FHFzYPLHbQ
— PistonPowered (@PistonPowered) February 22, 2025
Like Webber, Duren is a good passer for his size, though C-Webb was a lot more creative and skilled with the ball in his hands than Duren has been at this point in his career.
Both players are great rebounders, especially on the offensive end. Duren is probably a little more accomplished as a rebounder than C-Webb was at his age, but Webber ended up leading the league in rebounds once in his career.
That’s really where the similarities end for me, as Webber entered the league as a far-better scorer and all-around offensive player than Duren, who has added some dribble takes to his repertoire, and has improved as a passer, but still doesn’t have anywhere near the offensive bag that Webber had at his age.
Webber wasn’t a center and played a good deal on the perimeter, where he could knock down a 15–18-foot jumper and had several seasons where he took 2+ attempts per game from long range.
Duren doesn’t have that in his game yet, and I’m not sure I’ve even seen him attempt a face-up 15-footer, which was Webber’s bread and butter, especially later in his career.
The athleticism, size and physicality are there but these are two very different offensive players who were asked to do very different things at this stage of their respective careers.
Any similarity to Webber (who was also a better defender than Duren) is a good thing, but Webber was a six-time All-Star who made the All-NBA team five teams, once on the first team, so Duren has a long way to go to get there.
It was an unexpected comparison to make, but it shows that Duren is impressing, and his play of late has been a big part of the Pistons’ success.