With the Timberwolves agreeing to sign Jonathan Kuminga on Wednesday, all of the top young free agents are off the board, except for Jalen Duren. All attention is now on how his restricted free-agent saga will end with the Detroit Pistons. Given how ugly things have reportedly gotten, more attention might not sound good, but in this case, it could be if they're ready to end the stalemate.
NBA insider Jake Fischer said on a Bleacher Report livestream on Tuesday that he spoke to someone with "some" knowledge of what's been going on between Detroit and Duren, who said that the center is "still on track" to get the four-year, $160 million deal that the Pistons have already offered.
It's good to hear that, especially when it has felt like, at times, that things had gone too far south between Duren and the Pistons to mend things. If both sides still have traction on getting the above deal done and they can take it across the finish line, that'd be a major win.
At this point, you have to think that Duren is ready to get something done, even more so after watching his fellow restricted free agents settle their situations. There is still hope for that to happen.
Let's close this chapter, please
Restricted free agency drags on for what feels like forever. It weighs heavily on the players involved as they realize they're not worth the kind of money they thought they deserved. In this case, Duren wanted the max, and Detroit was right not to offer it. That doesn't mean he's wrong to have hard feelings about that (and everything else), though.
The longer this drags on, the more those feelings can grow. Although it may not have seemed like the Pistons and Duren were capable of putting an end to things — given all of the lovely things we've heard about how talks have gone! — they can do that whenever they want.
We're entering the final few weeks before training camp opens, and it'd be ideal to have a resolution before then, rather than letting this risk continue and distract the team, as Duren has until Oct. 1 to decide on his qualifying offer. If he needs more reason not to do that, all he needs to do is look at how Kuminga's situation played out. Averaging $40 million per year isn't too shabby, anyway.
Detroit will collectively breathe a sigh of relief when (speaking it into existence) they get the Shams Charania notification that the Pistons and Duren have agreed to a multi-year deal.
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