reward players with rubber-stamp contracts<\/a> until they prove they deserve them.<\/p>\nThere is some amount of risk to this strategy, but it also gives the Pistons flexibility and keeps them from getting trapped in bad contracts that they will later regret.<\/p>\n
Detroit Pistons: The second star may be on the team, maybe not<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t surprising that the Pistons didn\u2019t extend Ivey and Duren as there was little motivation on either side to get a deal done early.<\/p>\n
The Pistons would rather wait and see knowing that they are unlikely to lose either player in restricted free agency anyway, as they\u2019d have the chance to match any offer.<\/p>\n
They may end up paying these guys big bucks, but they will have to earn it through their contributions on the court this season. Duren seems like the safer bet to be around but at this point, I\u2019d be surprised if Jaden Ivey is still on the team past this season or perhaps even the trade deadline, especially if the Pistons play well in his absence.<\/p>\n
Trajan Langdon knows how difficult it is to extricate yourself from bad contracts and doesn\u2019t want to get locked into a team that isn\u2019t a true contender. The Pistons need to show this group can make it deeper into the playoffs with more improvement ahead of them before Langdon is willing to commit.<\/p>\n
As painful as it is going to be to hear trade rumors all season, it\u2019s probably the smart approach under the current tax rules, as teams that get locked into mediocrity are often stuck there. Ask the Bulls. Ask the Raptors, whose payrolls are high even though their teams are mediocre at best.<\/p>\n
Landgon is going to give this group time to prove itself, but if he doesn\u2019t see his second star or thinks Ivey and Duren aren\u2019t it, he won\u2019t hesitate to go in another direction. He has the most important thing which is a young superstar, but building the team out around him is going to take more patience and evaluation.<\/p>\n
For now, Cunningham is the core of the Pistons and everything else is pending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yesterday\u2019s deadline to sign rookie extensions passed without either Jaden Ivey or Jalen Duren receiving one from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-240840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}