Should have strained his hammy

Ehh he’s still got an out

Calls a press conference

“At the end of the regular season, 2 Chinese gunman broke into my house. They implanted a, chip a mind control chip into my brain with a battery attached that they said would run out of juice mid May. They said it would surprise my basketball abilities and I would likely average zero points a game.

In spite of this , I still managed to score 10 a game. Also the doctors have verified the chip is now out of juice”

Literally if the Pistons were the 5th-8th seed and won a series and lost in the second round, everyone would be like wow they’re going to be a serious threat with Cade for the next 5-10 years.

Nobody expected them to be the #1 seed, nor be #1 for the entire season lol. And yet now they enter the offseason in “crisis mode” as a terrible team, even though they clearly overachieved compared to anyone’s expectations coming into the season.

They absolutely have flaws, but this was the first season to really kinda see what we have. Yet everyone is acting like we went all in with a team of vets and this was it for us lol

Availability is the worst ability. -Duren’s agent.

Yeah but it’s definitely better for the Pistons that his value was lowered to a much more reasonable number. He would have probably tanked his career trajectory a bit if he got a contract that big, failed to live up to it, and then got labeled a bust.

As long as he keeps developing and improving, paying him closer to 30-35 will end up being a perfectly fair value for both sides.

Which fucking sucks because it kinda just perpetuates the sitting out is best for the individual player stigma.

Imagine if he was out and they still got bounced and every fan was like “just imagine if we had Duren we would have won it all.” Yes, he would have gotten the max.

How minor? Like if his penis fell off last day of the regular season, would it affect his contract?

Doubtful that he’ll get offered a max. If a team do, the Pistons can choose not to match the contract

window closed shut

He’ll probably get it. Someone will offer him a sheet and the Pistons will match.

Fair to try to bring the price down but I’m not ready to say he’d be an albatross. I think we all forget that Klay Thompson’s first two playoff outings were brutal. The seasons that followed obviously showed us he’s a playoff riser and needed some time to adapt. Duren could go down that trajectory, in terms of playoff performance

Can we interest you in 1 Julius Randle instead?

Trade him for Giannis

A 6’10 assassin shooting near 50/40/90? You’re gonna wanna keep that guy

Harris is a great player, he’s just not a #2 on a championship team and gets shit on for it unnecessarily

You never let a ninja scorer like Tobias go

Yep. Teams can basically leave Thompson alone on the 3 point line and they want Duran to dominate against 2 bigs in the paint? Alright.

Duren’s defense needs a lot of work. Also needs to tighten his handle and see if he can shoot from further out

That being said, I dont see how Duren and Ausar can coexist tbh

Okay, but he was also soft on defense and rebounding and he can’t shoot lol

That doesn’t explain the defense lapses, stupid fouls, and inability to rebound.

Just means he isn’t worth the max at the moment. You want to pay players for the skill sets they have and could potentially develop on a realistic timeline. If he can’t do those things because of team construction, paying him less and getting to build more of the team will help.    

Sucks he won’t get a max despite being an all star/nba but teams can’t afford to play players with large holes in their game and fix the team at the same time. 

That only covers part of his game. Duren was complete ass relative to the regular season in all parts of his game. Not just offensively.

I would also add, Duren is better at putting the ball on the floor and bullying his way to the basket. He had a couple of possessions where he did a quick dribble moves from around free throw area and scored.

There’s certainly a developmental pathway here, continue to build off that driving game to use his body to get to the paint even if their sagging and a develop an respectable middy.

I didn’t watch Allen against the Knicks, but the larger issue with Duren was the effort and energy

If he just played like shit, then we can improve from that. But for both this series and the Orlando series there was no effort. Lazy on the rebounds. Lazy setting screens. Lazy going up and down the court. That’s shit I’m afraid he can’t fix

If he was just missing shots, or struggling to get open but was still putting effort in on defense and on the boards, I’d be fine extending him. But with how he played I wouldn’t be. Like I said, he was lazy. There was a lack of effort for almost 14 straight games. He seemed braindead on defense too. I’m afraid that that’s something that can’t be fixed

Legit basketball analysis? My man! Thanks fr

great analysis! I didn’t watch them super closely in the playoffs but what I did see was that their lack of shooting absolutely killed them. They had lineups at times where they had 4 bad shooters if you count Cade (shot 34% from 3 this year).

Better guard play and better shooting will help them tremendously. he needs to develop more tools in his offensive bag for sure to ever be worth a max deal. I have concerns about him and Ausar together but i think you pick the big anytime if it comes to that.

I wouldn’t think so. I’m sure he and his agent are smart enough to realize that he would have gotten the max at the end of the regular season and the only reason he’s not is because he couldn’t live up to those performances in the playoffs

Jarrett Allen is the 3rd or 4th option and he is a very good defensive player, Duren isn’t a particularly great defender

You’re exactly right. I still believe in JD. He’s incredibly young, and he showed in the regular season that he can be dominant. I’m not ready to give up on you big dog.

Maybe him underperforming in the playoffs was a blessing in disguise. We won’t have to pay him as much, which allows us to spend more on another complimentary piece next to cade. Perhaps a 4-d chess move? TY JD for sucking.

It’s not a bad thing, it’s probably a great thing, because he is still 22 and has a lot of potential to get better.

Pistons and fans are daydreaming if they think that happens. One of the Bulls or Nets will throw him a max contract and Pistons either have to let him walk or match.

He’s an RFA, they can always match

Seriously. His playoffs was brutal but some team is going to take a shot on 22 year old coming off a near ²⁰⁄₁₀ guy.

Lakers fans say they can fix him

I mean this full disrespect, he’s just a really jacked guy with no energy or basketball skills

He has a decent dime reel. Just no recognition or confidence in that part of his games during the playoffs unfortunately.

And for being jacked he sure does get pushed around a whole lot in the paint.

just from highlights alone you can tell paul reed has a more refined bag in the post as well he may not be flashy but he knows his role and gets to the paint well

duren though i feel he just relies on his athleticism and doesnt really have any moves.

2nd or 3rd team for sure

He is 2nd team for sure I think.

people are dumb with recency bias, including Pistons fans. He’s a 22 and just made the all-star. Some team is going to max him, then DET will match it, then Pistons fans will come on and talk about how it was a good signing because it wasn’t the full max.

Problem is you can’t play duren and ausar together right now and they are our two biggest non cade assets

I think if we gave duren some spacing he would look great but yea that’s a big issue right now

I think Duren would feast with all the spacing in LA. He just wont help your defense very much. 

I genuinely think Lakers should try to do this. I can’t imagine any other way for them to get a player with that level of upside.

Sign and trade, Rui + draft capital for Duren