Somehow, we’re now into September, and the Pistons and their young superstar big man Jalen Duren don’t seem particularly close to an agreement on a new contract. The 22-year-old center is coming off a breakout season in which he averaged 19.5 points and 10.5 rebounds per game, earning a third-team All-NBA appearance.
So you’d think it would be a no-brainer for Detroit to ink the restricted free agent to a massive extension. Yet, that hasn’t been the case at all, and it’s actually a wise decision for the team that just won 60 games and finished the regular season as the top seed in the Eastern Conference.
The latest report from Tim McMahon of ESPN indicates that the Pistons have offered Duren a five-year deal that would pay him $35 million per season. We’ve heard that Duren was seeking as much as $50 million per year earlier in the summer, and McMahon still reports that he wants a deal in excess of $40 million a season.
Pistons would be crazy to max Duren after playoff shortcomings
As of now, the Pistons haven’t been in that ballpark. And that’s the right choice. Just look at the Celtics. Last season, they won 56 games and finished second in the East while leaning on two centers on minimum contracts. Neemias Queta and Luka Garza had never even been part of an NBA rotation before last season, but Joe Mazzulla was able to plug them into his system and get above-average production.
In the modern NBA, with the current CBA and apron restrictions, every dollar needs to be spent wisely, and paying max (or near max) money to a center that isn’t truly elite can be disastrous. Squeezing excess value out of players is essential for building a contender in this day and age, and center is a great position to target those kinds of results.
Even this season, as the Celtics have tried to improve the frontcourt, they’re only paying the mid-level exception to Mitchell Robinson for three years, and they extend Queta for four years and $56 million. Even with the boost in spending, Boston will have two very good centers under contract for roughly $30 million a year combined.
Maybe you’d rather have Duren. Maybe you’d rather have Robinson AND Queta. When you factor in that Duren wants more than $10 million a year more than the duo, this becomes a pretty easy choice. Duren is still young and can get better, but he just completely cratered in the playoffs, and the idea that he’ll ever be a truly elite big man seems far-fetched.
Celtics have created the blueprint for a cheap, impactful center rotation
Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s a very good player and worth a lot of money, but the Pistons are Cade Cunningham’s team. They need to build around him, and spending near max money on a center who’s not a top-tier defender and is likely suited as a third option on offense would be a big mistake.
It seems like their front office realizes this, and after the playoff failures, they are completely justified in playing hardball and using their restricted free agency leverage to try and keep Duren on a more team-friendly deal than he’d like. Perhaps this hard negotiating ends up severing the relationship and ultimately leads to the team losing Duren, but at the end of the day, that’s still a better outcome than paying him close to $50 million a year.
As the Celtics have proven, this is a spot where value can be identified and extracted, and that’s the best path forward for a team led by a ball-dominant star like Cunningham. Boston has shown the blueprint for building out the center room, and unfortunately for them, it looks like their competitors have started to take note.
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