Jalen Duren's Deadline Is Almost Here: Will His Bet Pay Off?

All right.

Well, we're gonna talk about the Lakers in a minute, but I do gotta get your take on the still, uh, biggest free agent that's out there right now, and that's Jalen Dern, restricted free agent in Detroit.

Still has not signed the long-term extension believed to be around 5 years, $200 million has until Thursday to sign the qualifying offer.

Sam, how did we get here?

With this.

I mean, Jalen Duran, who turned down a contract extension offer from the Pistons last year, played a tremendous regular season, and I stand by the belief that if he had pulled his hamstring in game 82, we wouldn't be sitting here right now.

That the Pistons would have stepped up, paid him probably what he wants to be paid, and we wouldn't be having this conversation, but He didn't.

He played in the playoffs.

He didn't play well.

He was at times a liability for Detroit in those first couple of rounds.

So here we are with the Pistons and Durran at a stalemate.

He's got till Thursday to make a decision on this qualifying offer.

Uh, what's your read of the situation right now?

Uh, I mean, after yesterday, it's, it's, it's, it's could not be more, uh, I mean, toxic might be a little strong, but it's in that territory because I, I was pretty surprised by the way that P Pistons.

Head of their front office, president of basketball Ops, Trajan Layman, decided to frame things at media day.

Um, on the one hand, told reporters, I'm not gonna talk about negotiations, but then, you know, I had a couple of zingers, you know, high and tight heaters where he compared, um, Jalen, uh , to, you know, his time in New Orleans and, and presumably Zion Williamson, which, you know, as you know, there's a weight clause in Jalen's latest offer, which is also analogous to the Zion situation and around the league, people are scratching their heads going, OK, I, apparently, clearly, there's some concerns about Jalen's, you know, maybe conditioning or dedication, but, but, you know, Zion is in a, in a category all his own when it comes to that stuff.

And for Trajan to, to have those types of talking points and to answer your question is, like, it, I guarantee you, it does not put Jalen in a better headspace as this qualifying offer deadline comes.

It's gonna Piss him off even more, the disrespect is gonna be on an even greater level.

Um, that being said, I still, I was just talking to an executive before we hopped on about just handicapping, do you think he'll have the stomach to actually take the QO, you know, assuming the Pistons don't up the offer, or if he doesn't take the current one.

And I don't know the answer to that, um, because, yes, he has a lot of intel and confidence regarding his market next summer.

That has buoyed, you know, his belief that the QO might be a, a good way to go, because over the course of five years, if you can get a max 4-year deal next summer, then you make your money up, um, you know, he can get the money back, but, you know, you're skipping over the scary part, which is the season in between when you make $9.6 million and you have to be concerned about getting hurt or as, uh, I think it was Brendan Hayward on the podcast said, Something I thought was fascinating, which is, you also, you better go show out in the playoffs next year because if you do it again, then it becomes, you know, a real story, not just an outlier.

So, um, it, these are first-world problems.

I get that the fans have their stomachs turned when they hear about somebody being disrespected by $200 million but I don't know what to do about that.

That, that, you know, the money is the money.

I do understand where Jalen is coming from.

I really do.

I mean, our man Thompson getting $208 million.

Uh, if you're Jalen, you're, like, he wasn't all NBA, he wasn't an All-Star.

Um, you know, there's other cops as well that from a non-emotional negotiating standpoint, I would argue, you know, make him kind of the, the winner of this debate, but that's not how this works.

So, uh, we'll see if he does it, but this thing is obviously coming down to the wire.

Can we just unpack a couple of things?

One, I, I can't find, uh, I can't understand, nor can I find anyone that can really explain the weight clause thing.

Uh, you know, Zion had his well-publicized weight issues.

Um, he would balloon up, it would affect him physically.

Um, he wouldn't be available because of that.

Jalen Duran looks like a Greek god.

Like Jalen Duran does not look like someone that has a need for a weight clause in a contract.

Why do you, what's your understanding or do you have one, I guess, better one than I do, of why this is a thing in Detroit?

So, A, I was as surprised as anybody when, you know, we learned about the weight clause.

I will say, reverse engineering it, it was interesting from a reporting standpoint.

To then look into it and, and credit to our beat writer in Detroit, Hunter Patterson, who this is his intel.

He, when we connected on this topic, um, Hunter had immediately said, oh, that's fascinating, and I said, why?

And I can share this cause we already reported it, but he said, because I remember literally in the playoffs, somebody with the Pistons, you know, casually mentioning to me, like, ah, we, we kinda need Jalen to, to drop a little weight for next year, or something to that effect, that it was, you know, in, in loose terms.

There was a connection made between playoff performance and his body.

Uh, since then, have stumbled into some insight regarding, you know , I don't think it's on the Zion level, nor do I think it should be, uh, nor am I endorsing kind of the concern, but just how they see it, that, that there is a, uh, a belief around Tran that he has, you know, some level of concern that, that if you hand Jalen.

This much money that he's gonna, you know, grind in the way that you would want him to.

Um, that's just not a healthy, I mean, whatever is, you know, regardless of what the truth is, it's just not a healthy way to, to, to enter, you know, kind of a re-upping of the relationship, if that makes sense.

And even more macro than that.

I think because the Pistons are not one of the, you know, LA, New York franchises, we, we haven't told the story as often, but this is a title contender where the walls to some degree have been coming down.

Um, I mean, the Isaiah Stewart, Tobias Harris departures, um, you know, in the middle of that is a guy that I, I, I find even more interesting as time goes on, is Cade Cunningham, who's saying all the right things, but if you're Cade, You know, he, he had told uh Omari Sankofa that Pisses beat Ryder the other day that he feels like a rookie again, uh, with those guys leaving town, and my first thought was like, you do not want your MVP caliber guy feeling like a rookie.

These are not great talking points as you try to, you know, go farther than 60 wins in the regular season and, and the second round of the playoffs.

No, you don't.

And, and guys like Isaiah Stewart and Tobias Harris, in addition to being productive players, I remember being out there in January for a week or so.

Uh, they are very much part of the fabric of that locker room, you know, Stewart and Durran were incredibly close during their time together.

Harris was like the unk in that locker room, the leader that guys looked up to and big part of that turnaround over the last couple of years.

Um, I'll say this, if Duran signs the qualifying offer, it will rank up there among the ballsiest moves that I've ever seen because I get what you're saying.

Like you can on the back end you can make some of that money up, but like when you take the qualifying, you can make it reality is you get the max, you make it all up, right, you can make it all up.

But like, you know, but this money kind of.

Like this money kind of vanishes to a degree, right?

Like it's, it's, you're taking the qualifying offer, you're taking $9.5 million instead of $40 million.

Now you can long term, I guess if you play well you can, you sign the right contract, you can do that, but this is, it would be like you don't see this, right?

Like I remember years ago, remember when Porzingis with the Knicks and he was like threatening to sign the qualifying offer, laughable.

To me, like Porzingis was never leaving money on the table to sign a qualifying offer when he could have the extra money guarantee.

Guys don't do this when they have a chance to sign long term.

They figure it out.

If Durran does this, it's one of the ballsiest moves that, that I can remember a guy doing and a big bet on himself.

But I wonder if Durran and his team.

And maybe we've now reached the point of no return, but I, I, I think back to Walker Kessler and what he did in Utah.

Like Walker Kessler had an offer on the table from the Jazz.

It wasn't what the Lakers are willing to pay him.

They believed that they were worth what the Lakers ponied up, the 4 years, $130 million whatever that number ultimately was.

He, he played that game of chicken and they won.

Um, I wonder if throughout this process Duran was kind of playing that same game and now with the Pistons dug in and Duran seemingly dug in.

Maybe he's reached a point he didn't think they were going to get to.

He didn't think they would get this far.

Maybe he thought the Pistons would have done a deal already with Sacramento, with the Milwaukee, with Atlanta, with whoever's out there that has interest in them.

But the Pistons, to my knowledge, I mean , they seem pretty determined not to do that.

They have not really engaged from what I can tell in substantive sign and trade talks with anybody.

No, I checked in on that again today, and, and not with every single team, but the, you know, same indications, um, you know, no talks whatsoever, no, no sign that they're willing to do it, you know, I mean, my goodness, Trajan telling the world that he hadn't spoken to Jalen all summer long is another headline, uh, that we kind of skipped over.

Um, I, the comparison to Walker is Interesting.

I might end up writing about that a little bit for tomorrow, and I'm, because I was at the Lakers and I'm looking at Walker and I covered that story pretty closely , and, and the two situations are, are very analogous.

Walker was in the same spirit and kind of situation with the Jazz as Jalen is with the Pistons.

And now, granted, if you ask Walker about the Jazz, he will immediately, you know, just heap praises upon the organization and the fans, and he wants to make sure that relationship.

You know, kind of is honored, but make no mistake, at that time, they had to make the Jazz believe that he would take the QO.

It was very intense at that time, and the Jazz ended up kind of buckling, and they got a lot for it, so, I think they probably made the right choice.

But the part that's also fascinating is that Jalen was next up for the Lakers.

He had visited with them, they had told them they saw him as a max player, and I think if Walker didn't happen, Then Jalen was gonna be Plan B.

So to now see Jalen, you know, as the clock ticks down, still dealing with this 2.5 months later is pretty wild.

Yeah, um, yeah, I, I, right now as we speak, I don't know which way it's gonna go, uh, but if he does sign that qualifying offer, man, that would be a, a pretty ballsy move by, by Jalen Dunn, a big bet that he is going to get that contract from somebody next offseason.