Jalen Duren is missing media day Monday as his restricted free agent standoff with the Detroit Pistons remains unresolved. The deadline for Duren to accept his one-year, $9.6 million qualifying offer and become an unrestricted free agent next summer is Thursday (Oct. 1), unless the Pistons agree to move it back.
By virtue of making an All-NBA Team, Duren became eligible for a Rose Rule, 30% max contract with the Pistons that would have paid him $287 million over five years. However, a disappointing postseason limited his market. For most of the offseason, the Pistons were believed to have offered $190 million over five years, but have recently increased that offer to $200 million, though the deal includes weight clauses.
Duren has thus far rejected all offers, and according to ESPN, his representatives have made it clear that this is no longer about the money. Duren feels disrespected, especially in light of the five-year, $155 million contract Ausar Thompson got from the team earlier this offseason. Should Duren accept the qualifying offer, he would become an unrestricted free agent next offseason and therefore be able to sign with any team.
However, doing so based on Detroit's current offer would offer no financial gain. Based on current cap projections, a four-year max deal in free agency from anyone besides the Pistons would pay Duren $189.2 million. If you include his $9.6 million qualifying offer, Duren would therefore stand to make up to $198.8 million or so over the next five seasons, which is less than what the Pistons are reportedly offering. Detroit's offer is presumably on the table now, whereas this approach would force Duren to play out this season and risk hurting his value through either injury or performance. In other words, there's a lot of risk and nothing to gain financially.
What would free agency look like next year?
The only potential benefit to Duren -- who was a Third Team All-NBA selection last year but scuffled in the playoffs -- in this world would be the freedom to pick his next team. Typically, players seek that out to force their way from underwhelming teams onto contenders. For Duren, that freedom would seemingly work in reverse. Duren is already on a 60-win Pistons team. The teams he has been linked to this offseason are the Sacramento Kings and Milwaukee Bucks, who won fewer games combined than the Pistons did a season ago. More teams could have max cap space next offseason, of course, but the odds of finding a better fit than the pick-and-roll partnership he's formed with Cade Cunningham are slim.
The Pistons have thus far resisted sign-and-trade overtures from other teams, but as Thursday's deadline draws nearer, they could potentially reconsider a deal. The fear of losing Duren for nothing, even on a contract Detroit deems too expensive, is real. Consider the Indiana Pacers here. The Bucks overpaid Myles Turner last offseason, but they still had to give up two valuable first-round picks to replace him with Ivica Zubac.
What about a sign-and-trade?
One of the challenges in building a sign-and-trade, though, is a rarely used CBA clause known as base-year compensation. Duren's new team in a sign-and-trade would be absorbing him at his full salary based on his new contract. The Pistons, however, would only be able to count half of his new salary as outgoing money for trade purposes, making matching money on certain, expensive players somewhat tricky. Much of Detroit's salary is not currently tradable, so while there are a few contracts the Pistons could add to a deal, their options are fairly limited.
Both the Kings (Domantas Sabonis) and the Bucks (Turner) would have expensive, older centers to send the Pistons back in a possible sign-and-trade. Neither seemingly have positive trade value at this moment. Sabonis will earn more over the next two seasons than Duren based on his existing contract, and while Turner is cheaper, he is still being paid at the top of the non-star center market. Both teams would presumably need to add meaningful asset value to convince the Pistons to cooperate in a sign-and-trade.
Detroit could sidestep some of the cap concerns baked into signing-and-trading Duren by simply re-signing him and flipping him at the deadline, when his contract situation is settled and everyone's money is more easily movable. However, trust seems to be minimal in this relationship right now, and Duren doesn't seem eager to commit to the Pistons at this point on the hope that he might get traded. Besides, the Pistons could wind up stuck with a contract that ages poorly if they went this route.
There was a time in fairly recent NBA history in which a player like Duren, a 22-year-old coming off of an All-NBA season, was given an almost automatic max contract. The salary-cap aprons have forced teams to be a bit more cautious with their money, and Duren's underwhelming postseason performance has led the Pistons to draw some lines that their center seemingly finds disrespectful. The staring contest continues until Thursday. Only time will tell which side, if either, winds up blinking.