that’s… not even remotely true. In fact, Its only true if you spend far too much time reading comments on sports subreddits.

rigged drafts, players openly coming out saying refs are instructed to help other teams win, league where GM’s and Owners purposely lose games for draft picks, League with Steve Balmer.

NBA is about as authentic as the WWE, and low iq sportsball fans act like a child being told santa isn’t real when you tell em.

Nah, NBA would just do a five year investigation like the PL

Would you rather have your third option be OG or Duren? Because that’s the context of what a winning third string player looks like versus one that just got benched.

That you don’t see the contradiction between the first half of what you said and the second half is hilarious.

You’re definitely not wrong that we won’t be contending for anything with two non-shooters in the starting lineup. Wild that you don’t even have to be an NBA GM to see that. I feel like our cokehead owner could have found someone else who did when he replaced Weaver. Where do they keep finding these morons?

If I were the pistons I would’ve actually worked on sign and trades when durens camp first brought this to the table. If Detroit wouldn’t have refused to do that there’s a non zero chance they don’t trade beef stew and are able to have acquired like say zach lavine to be cades offensive second option

If i was in his position, offer 150m and hope he takes the QO

How many teams have been hamstrung by a mid player on big money?

“Its worse to lose him for nothing!” How many GMs have been fired over this mindset? In the NBA 1 bad contract means youre done as a contender.

QO with a trade, sign and trade, QO without a trade in that order.

First two options, he has positive trade value. I think 1 year of Duren on a \(10m QO that is both basically an expiring contract AND one year of exclusive recruiting rights is worth more than Duren on a 5/\)200m contract in a sign and trade (much bigger market for $10m expiring), so I’d prefer the QO with the trade.

Third option, you lose him for nothing, but you don’t saddle yourself with a $40m toxic “asset”.

The worst possible outcome is the one that happened. There is no path to contending for a title now. Ausar and Duren cannot start together, as they proved in the playoffs. Cade deserves so much better.

What would a positive of this signing be for the Pistons?

Right. Detroit has more breathing room under the aprons this season than it’s likely to have once Ausar’s new deal and Cade’s eventual next contract start stacking on, so they’re using the room they have now to front-load Duren’s number, specifically so it’s smaller in the year those other raises land. If Duren’s number kept climbing into 2027-28 at the same time Ausar’s deal kicks in, that’s two raises hitting in the same season, right in the stretch where they’d have the least room to absorb it. Shaping the dip to land in that specific year front-runs that collision.

Would that also make him easier to trade in the future?

He was also pretty wasteful with ice cream.

From watching him play. Dude stinks. But now that he’s getting paid $200 million from you guys, I guess Pistons fans gotta pretend he has positive qualities.

The thing is to be paid \(40 million roughly a year and be an average defensive center but also an offensive player who requires being set up by Cade starts to push this contract into the category of paying him w the expectation he improves on both ends. If he just remains average defensively and doesn’t improve his self creation and post moves you’re paying \)40 million for a center who probably isn’t worth over $30. Like let me be clear he’s 22 it’s probably fine but he’s not gifted enough offensively to just be average defensively forever

And youre getting sabonis back, congrats i guess

No thank you. I want Duren off my team as much as the next guy, but Sabonis doesn’t make anything better

No they wouldn’t. And if they would, our imbecile GM would turn it down. Our front office got the outcome they wanted. Fuck winning, I guess.

Cade deserves better.

Sure, but the part of my message that I removed (because I think most fans would agree) is that Duren’s production isn’t worth this deal. He got benched for a guy who played 14 minutes per game for them this past season, so by giving in, the Pistons are betting that he won’t be this bad again even though he wasn’t good in the playoffs in 2025 either (though that one is more excusable).

I swear the team had hired posters to shit on Duren. The amount of vitriol towards him in every thread about his contract negotiation never made sense.

brandon ingram made an all star team too. would you be happy if your team signed him at 40m per year

its the 2nd straight playoffs hes played poorly and hes had exactly 1 season at all star lvl. its not like we havent seen players have great contract seasons and then immediately go back once they get paid

You’re arguing with idiots who don’t do anything besides look at W/L and box scores.

Duren’s actual play style is why he’s a risk going forward. He’s a slow footed rim runner with a mediocre motor. If he were playing like Rudy does in the playoffs, we would’ve happily given him $45M AAV.

nope when Lauri’s teams all immediately made playoffs after he left

oh ur one of those

Lauri averaged 0 ppg in 10 straight playoffs while being a cone on defense and got paid $50m lol

so why isn’t a “team game” when Duren gets singled out for scapegoating?

tanking for what? Bulls didn’t own their FRP in 2021 yet they still missed playoffs

better based on what? Lauri is already 29 and hasn’t made playoffs a single time in his career lol. anybody else would get called a losing player by age 25 with no playoff appearances yet Lauri continues to get excuses on top of excuses

if he was so good, his teams wouldn’t be perpetually tanking

when? Gobert never made it further in playoffs than Duren until Gobert was 31 years old and on a way better team lmao

who? whos is being paid more than him and never sniffed an all star game?

taking a look at the list theres franz and reaves whove technically never made an all star game but theyre clearly all star lvl players

then theres MPJ who was regarded as a bad contract and the nuggets used a unprotected 1st round pick to get off his salary

If he plays on a QO and refuses a trade, then we’d be up $40m in cap space if he left. That’s a better position than we’re in now.

If he plays on a QO and is open to a trade, then the team acquiring him would be getting a one year of Duren at \(10m with essentially an expiring contract AND the exclusive rights to recruit him all season. That has more value than Duren a 5/\)200 does, and is a better situation than we have now.

Signing Duren to a contract that he in no way has come close to earning and that he does not have the potential to develop into earning is the worst possible outcome of this whole ordeal. And on top of that, he has been open about not wanting to be here.

The Pistons absolutely had a choice. They had multiple options. They chose the worst possible one, and they threw away any chance of Cade winning a ring in Detroit in the process.

Our cokehead owner is as big an imbecile as our GM and half our fanbase.

This mindset has gotten so many GMs fired and taken their teams out of contention but people still cling to it

I’d rather keep Ausar than Duren tbh I believe in him more

I hope they never trade ausar

No one is giving 4FRPs for Ausar. If they were, he would have been traded.

Gobert got benched by his own coach in multiple 4th quarters and had his minutes cut to under 30 mpg last playoffs

Gobert got outscored by Biyombo and Kornet in an elimination playoff game and his FG% dropped 19% this most recent playoffs lol

lol the “HES JUST 22” ppl r so funny

its like they think hes young so theres no chance he doesnt get better

it does seem like theyve completely turned on duren lol

those playoffs mustve actually been horrible