reportedly<\/a> considered inking a one-year, $9.6-million qualifying offer, which would have let him test unrestricted free agency next summer, after turning down a fully guaranteed five-year, $200-million deal. Ultimately, the 22-year-old agreed to those terms ahead of Thursday’s deadline.<\/p>\n“This process took way longer than any of us really wanted. Longer than I wanted, I’m sure longer than the organization wanted,” Duren added.<\/p>\n
Duren became eligible to receive a five-year, $287-million deal after earning an All-NBA third-team selection during a breakout 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n
Duren didn’t attend the start of training camp or media day as the two sides worked out a deal, which sparked reports of his lack of commitment to the franchise.<\/p>\n
“There’s been a lot of talk, speculation, false narratives around my name throughout the entire summer, so much so that it started to even diminish my character and everything I stand for,” he said.<\/p>\n
Duren’s stock on the court was damaged by an underwhelming postseason. After averaging 19.5 points, 10.5 rebounds, and two assists in 70 regular-season games, he recorded 10.2 points and 8.5 boards in the playoffs as the top-seeded Pistons slumped to a second-round defeat by the Cleveland Cavaliers.<\/p>\n
“Last season was obviously some of my highest moments of my career and some of my lowest. … I’m willing to acknowledge that,” Duren said.<\/p>\n
With the contract talks now resolved, president of basketball operations Trajan Langdon reiterated a commitment to Duren from the team’s perspective Sunday.<\/p>\n
“We are extremely excited to have JD back in the city of Detroit and back with the Detroit Pistons organization,” Langdon told reporters. “He has been a huge part of our success and the turnaround over the past two seasons.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Detroit Pistons center Jalen Duren has pledged his future to the franchise after signing a five-year, $200-million contract…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":916376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-916375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/916376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}