The Pistons showed us the unbreakable power of restricted free agency
The Pistons had their star center in a very difficult spot, gave him minor concessions and in the 11th hour, he accepted them. The system is set up to this if teams have the will. Plus: Victor Wembanyama stands up to sports betting and the Blazers do an oopsie.
The Pistons had their star center in a very difficult spot, gave him minor concessions and in the 11th hour, he accepted them. The system is set up to this if teams have the will. Plus: Victor Wembanyama stands up to sports betting and the Blazers do an oopsie.
Good morning. The preseason is officially a day away. Let's basketball.
The Detroit Pistons had Jalen Duren in the torture chamber of restricted free agency, and waited until he tapped out.
That's one way to read the resolution of the stand-off, which ended with Duren taking the 5-year, $200 million offer on the table last Thursday, just 90 minutes before his qualifying offer expired. Another read: Duren held out for more money and fewer conditions, and used his high-stakes leverage to get some of that.
We don't have perfect clarity on what the Pistons offered earlier this offseason, but indications are that the offer grew by a total of $15-20 million over the summer. Duren didn't get anywhere close to even the rookie max of 25%, let only a designated player max that he'd have potentially been eligible to receive if he'd made All-NBA again in 2026-27. But the hold-out did net more money, up to $4 million on average per year over the course of the deal.
Was that worth the stress, the drama, the raw feelings, the late start on training camp? Only Duren can answer that, and only over time can he be honest with himself.
On the Pistons side, we don't know what offer would have gotten Duren to agree in July or August. This deal is still so far from the maximum allowable salary that perhaps Duren would have held out with a $215 million or $225 million offer. Now that a deal is signed and the team's biggest risk – that he signs the qualifying offer to become unrestricted in a year – is off the table, the Pistons do have mutual rehabilitation to do. There are clearly some trust issues in this player-team relationship, a trope that rarely ends well, and Duren's also going to be the focus of some negative fan attention, which the Pistons can't want.
The playbook at this point should be to lavish him with praise, and lie if necessary about how good he looks once he does join training camp. The Pistons' first preseason game is Monday; there's almost no chance he plays, showing up for the first time all offseason on Friday. But what Trajan Langdon and J.B. Bickerstaff say could go some distance to thawing whatever icy feelings persist with the rest of the team and the fans. Cade Cunningham, as a Piston youth who got the whole bag without having to threaten to leave, has a role here, too. He's been Duren's biggest public backer amid everything, and that won't change. The Pistons should lean on that loyalty and belief to help their own case that despite all this, Duren is a crucial, foundational piece of the team's hopes and dreams in the near term.
Duren won in the end: he was insulted by the Pistons' offer last summer and declined extension talks, he made All-NBA as a fourth-year player, he held out all summer to increase his contract value, and that happened. Because restricted free agency is an especially harsh environment right now, he didn't get a ton more than initially offered, and nowhere close to what he thought he deserved. But he signed a contract for $200 million, and gets to claim victory.
The scale of that victory just shows the power of restricted free agency, and the paradigm teams and player are living in under the current collective bargaining agreement. The team gave up concessions in the end and still landed a 22-year-old All-NBA center on a long 20% contract. The restricted free agency field has always been titled in favor of teams. The apron era skews it even further. Teams waive their power in it as their own peril.
